Simin Daneshvar

academic, novelist, fiction writer and translator

Largely regarded as the first major Iranian woman novelist. Daneshvar had a number of firsts to her credit. In 1948, her collection of Persian short stories was the first by an Iranian woman to be published. The first novel by an Iranian woman was her Savushun ("Mourners of Siyâvash"), which went on to become a bestseller. Daneshvar's Playhouse, a collection of five stories and two autobiographical pieces, is the first volume of translated stories by an Iranian woman author. Being the wife of the famous iran writer Jalal al-Ahmad she had a profound influence on his writing, she wrote the book "the Dawn of Jalal" in memory of her husband.

Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

writer and actor

Known for his promotion of social and artistic freedom in contemporary Iran and his realist depictions of rural life, drawn from personal experience.

Abbas Kiarostami

film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer

Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy (1987–1994), Close-Up (1990), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), and Taste of Cherry (1997), which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively.

Photo by Pedro J Pacheco by CC BY-SA 4.0

Aydin Aghdashloo

painter, graphist, writer, film critic

Aghdashloo's interest in including surreal spaces in his works and painting floating objects began in his 30 years of age. During the period, his works were of floating objects having a shadow on the ground. In a surrealistic environment, he painted dolls having no faces influenced by Gergeo Deki Riko and they later became a large part of his series "Years of Fire and Snow". According to him, painting of such faceless dolls helped him say the subconscious suspicious and illusive word in the form of a painting.

Pahlevani and zoorkhaneh rituals

traditional system of athletics originally used to train warriors

Recognized by UNESCO as the world's longest-running form of such training, it fuses elements of pre-Islamic Persian culture (particularly Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Gnosticism) with the spirituality of Shia Islam and sufism. Practiced in a domed structure called the zurkhāneh, training sessions consist mainly of ritual gymnastic movements and climax with the core of combat practice, a form of submission-grappling called koshti pahlavāni.

Photo by: Tasnim News Agency under CC BY 4.0