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Bahman Ghobadi at a press conference at the San Sebastián Film Festival 2006

Bahman Ghobadi (Kurdish: به‌همه‌نی قوبادی, Persian: بهمن قبادی ) is a Kurdish Iranian film director. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Iran. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.^[1][2]

He was born in Baneh, in northwestern Kurdistan Province of Iran. His family moved to Sanandaj in 1981. In 1983, Kambozia Partovi discovered him as a young talent and supported him to enter cinema.^[3] He received a Bachelor of Arts in film directing from the Iranian Broadcasting College. After a brief career in industrial photography, Ghobadi began making short 8 mm films. His documentary Life In Fog won numerous awards^{[attribution needed]}. Bahman Ghobadi was assistant director on Abbas Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us. He was also one of the two main actors in Samira Makhmalbaf's The Blackboard (1999).

Bahman Ghobadi founded Mij Film in 2000, a company with the aim of production of films in Iran about its different ethnic groups. His first feature film was A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), the first Kurdish film produced in Iran.^{[attribution needed]} The film won Caméra d'Or at Cannes Film Festival. His second feature was Marooned in Iraq (2002), which brought him the Gold Plaque from Chicago International Film Festival. His third feature, Turtles Can Fly, followed in 2004, winning the Glass Bear and Peace Film Award at Berlin International Film Festival and Golden Shell at San Sebastian International Film Festival.

In 2006, Ghobadi's Niwemang won Golden Shell at San Sebastian International Film Festival. Iran's renowned actors Golshifteh Farahani, Hassan Poorshirazi and Hedyeh Tehrani (also assistant director) acted in this movie. The music of the movie was made by Iran's world-class^{[peacock term]} musician Hossein Alizadeh. The film, which is a collaborative project by Iran, France, Austria and Iraq, was shot fully in Iranian Kurdistan. However, it narrates the story of a group of Iranian Kurdish musicians who would like to travel to Iraq and organize a concert in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In 2006, Index on Censorship gave Ghobadi an Index Film Award for making a significant contribution to freedom of expression through his film "Turtles Can Fly."^{[citation needed]}

• Abbas Kiarostami
• Samira Makhmalbaf
• Kambuzia Partovi

1. ^ "Iranian New Wave", by Jeffrey M. Anderson
2. ^ The Iranian New Wave, Iranian filmmakers enjoy a golden age
3. ^ (Persian) اهالي سينما از کامبوزيا پرتوي قدرداني کردند. Shargh Newspaper. Retrieved on 2007-07-25.

• Bahman Ghobadi at the Internet Movie Database
• Mij Film
• Index Film Award