Few filmmakers have taken a cinematic path as unusual as Amir Naderi, this years’ honorary guest and President of the Regional Competition Jury of GAIFF. The Daily caught up with the Iranian auteur, who traversed the world with his humanist films, to explore his prolific and widely celebrated oeuvre.
The director began making films in the 1970s in pre-revolutionary Iran, with his style taking shape through genre works and literary adaptations. Two films from 1974, Waiting and The Harmonica, which Naderi describes as autobiographical, marked a turning point. Waiting explores the interplay between a child’s imagination and art. Rather than following a conventional plot, the film unfolds as a collage-labyrinth of recurring symbols, obscure movements, and gestures. The Harmonica is also about the world of children, though it shifts the focus outward: to games, rapidly forming rules, and conventionality. Themes of cruelty and violence among children draw parallels with William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: the conch shell transforms into a harmonica, and the deserted island to an Iranian seaside town.
The protagonist in Naderi’s films is almost always the director’s alter ego, someone who takes on a seemingly absurd task and acts strictly within the limits of its completion. Another autobiographical film, The Runner (1984), though shot during the Iran-Iraq war, is filled with vivid colors and boundless energy. Amiro, a homeless child living in the coastal city of Abadan, despite all the difficulties, never stops running, as if embodying the very idea of perpetual motion. This theme of relentless forward movement is further developed in the even more conceptual Water, Wind, Dust, where Amiro, swept up in the chaos of the desert, must find water and shelter. These were among the first films to bring international recognition not only to Naderi, but to post-revolutionary Iranian cinema.
Suddenly, Amir Naderi decided that it was time for a new challenge. In the late 1980s, he moved to New York. There, he soon began weaving his character-centered narrative into the framework of the urban symphony, creating some of the most striking portraits of the foreign-native metropolis: Manhattan by Numbers (1993), A, B, C… Manhattan (1997) and Marathon (2002). Naderi structures his films around turbulent, restless characters who inhabit a hermetic world of obsessions and are in a constant state of searching.
In the new millennium, Naderi’s geographical scope expands even further: suburban Las Vegas stripped of its neon lights (Vegas: True Story, 2008), medieval Italy (Monte, 2016), and retro-modern Los Angeles (Magic Lantern, 2018). In Cut (2011), filmed in Japan, the protagonist, a young director, has to repay his brother’s debt to the Yakuza by acting as a human punching bag. 100 blows will erase the debt. Each blow is a sacrifice, a tribute to 100 masterpieces of cinema. With every strike, the title of a classic film appears on the screen: Bicycle Thieves, 8½, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mouchette, Decalogue, The Third Man, City Lights, Vertigo, Andrei Rublev, Stranger Than Paradise... With this, Naderi creates perhaps the most violently cinephilic film ever made.
Almost all your films are about the obsessions of restless characters navigating their idiosyncratic worlds. Where would you say these obsessions come from?
There are different approaches to filmmaking: some artists observe the world around them, while others draw from personal experience. As a filmmaker, everything I have made has come from my personality. I never make or do anything unless I feel close to it or have experienced it. And I try to bring that into both my characters and films.
Maybe that’s why the characters never give up?
I never give up, indeed, and neither do my characters. Maybe that’s why, unconsciously, I always push my characters to the edge, like in Sound Barrier or Cut. But I try to maintain a balance so they can find a way back. Just like I put myself in difficult situations as a filmmaker, always doing something different. At the start, I never know if I’ll succeed. But slowly and surely, I understand where I'm going and how to get there. I love that zigzag motion. For me, that in-between space is cinema.
Sometimes, there’s a miracle at the end. In Marathon, it’s just the snow; in Manhattan by Numbers, a few dollars from a stranger; in Monte, the rockfall and the sunshine.
I never thought about it that way! I’m an artist, but I’m also human. Since I put my characters through hell, I’ve always thought I should give them something in the end — not necessarily hope or a happy ending, but at least some kind of gift. So, I always give my characters a gift, but it remains a tricky thing. How much should you give?
The tradition of exploring childhood in Iranian cinema is strong. Its roots can be traced back to Sohrab Shahid Saless’ A Simple Event (1973), alongside your 1970s works like Waiting and Harmonica. And then, after the revolution, it becomes a touchstone of Iranian cinema, seen in your films besides those of Kiarostami, Panahi and the like.
With a new government and forms of censorship after the revolution, Abbas Kiarostami and I asked what kind of films could still be made. Their reply was films about animals and children. This is how the new wave of Iranian cinema emerged — through our collective work. It was a great chance for us not to worry about the commercial side. We made films for ourselves, for the kids, for libraries and schools. So, slowly and unconsciously, we made this wave happen. For me, it was especially important because I love The 400 Blows by Truffaut and Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy. That’s why I always wanted to make a trilogy of my own, which I did through Harmonica, Runner, and Water, Wind, Dust.
After Water, Wind, Dust, you decided to move to America. How was the transition from Iran to the USA? There’s an opinion that an outsider can find and see things that are unnoticeable to locals. Was that true for you?
First of all, I'm not a political person at all. My films might come across as political, but that’s just because they stem from my own experiences. I didn’t leave Iran for political reasons. I left because I wanted to go to another world and put myself in a different challenge. It wasn’t a hasty decision. I grew up in Abadan, a modern oil city in the south of Iran, full of foreigners and foreign-language films. So in a way, I knew New York even before I ever saw snow. Going to New York was wild, and that’s exactly why I wanted to go: to put myself, like my characters, in a different and challenging environment. From that new world, I went to Italy and Japan. Now I’m heading to Australia, followed by Iceland. I visit these places multiple times to get a sense of the culture, art, life, and people. Language is not so important to me. what I try to capture is the feeling, the essence of the place.
Spaces in your films are much more than just settings. Whether it’s the streets and subways of New York, the windy, empty deserts of Iran, or the sea, they feel like characters themselves. Even the interiors, walls covered in newspapers, crossword puzzles, or dollar bills, are always saying something.
For Marathon, I spent four months living in the subway, sometimes even sleeping there. You need time to get the feeling of the place, not of the people passing through, but the space itself. You don’t just go down there and say, “Let's make a film about trains.” No. I wanted to make a film of movement, light, editing, and sound. That’s the subway — a manifestation of the future. When I made a film about Las Vegas, I lived there for two years. For Water, Wind, Dust, I spent four months in the desert. Every time, I have to experience the place first, before I can make the film. I carry the idea with me until one day I know that I’m ready. Ideally, the situation itself speaks to me and says: “Amir, you’re ready.”
Alexander Melyan
Photo by Mane Hovhannisyan
The director began making films in the 1970s in pre-revolutionary Iran, with his style taking shape through genre works and literary adaptations. Two films from 1974, Waiting and The Harmonica, which Naderi describes as autobiographical, marked a turning point. Waiting explores the interplay between a child’s imagination and art. Rather than following a conventional plot, the film unfolds as a collage-labyrinth of recurring symbols, obscure movements, and gestures. The Harmonica is also about the world of children, though it shifts the focus outward: to games, rapidly forming rules, and conventionality. Themes of cruelty and violence among children draw parallels with William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: the conch shell transforms into a harmonica, and the deserted island to an Iranian seaside town.
The protagonist in Naderi’s films is almost always the director’s alter ego, someone who takes on a seemingly absurd task and acts strictly within the limits of its completion. Another autobiographical film, The Runner (1984), though shot during the Iran-Iraq war, is filled with vivid colors and boundless energy. Amiro, a homeless child living in the coastal city of Abadan, despite all the difficulties, never stops running, as if embodying the very idea of perpetual motion. This theme of relentless forward movement is further developed in the even more conceptual Water, Wind, Dust, where Amiro, swept up in the chaos of the desert, must find water and shelter. These were among the first films to bring international recognition not only to Naderi, but to post-revolutionary Iranian cinema.
Suddenly, Amir Naderi decided that it was time for a new challenge. In the late 1980s, he moved to New York. There, he soon began weaving his character-centered narrative into the framework of the urban symphony, creating some of the most striking portraits of the foreign-native metropolis: Manhattan by Numbers (1993), A, B, C… Manhattan (1997) and Marathon (2002). Naderi structures his films around turbulent, restless characters who inhabit a hermetic world of obsessions and are in a constant state of searching.
In the new millennium, Naderi’s geographical scope expands even further: suburban Las Vegas stripped of its neon lights (Vegas: True Story, 2008), medieval Italy (Monte, 2016), and retro-modern Los Angeles (Magic Lantern, 2018). In Cut (2011), filmed in Japan, the protagonist, a young director, has to repay his brother’s debt to the Yakuza by acting as a human punching bag. 100 blows will erase the debt. Each blow is a sacrifice, a tribute to 100 masterpieces of cinema. With every strike, the title of a classic film appears on the screen: Bicycle Thieves, 8½, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mouchette, Decalogue, The Third Man, City Lights, Vertigo, Andrei Rublev, Stranger Than Paradise... With this, Naderi creates perhaps the most violently cinephilic film ever made.
Almost all your films are about the obsessions of restless characters navigating their idiosyncratic worlds. Where would you say these obsessions come from?
There are different approaches to filmmaking: some artists observe the world around them, while others draw from personal experience. As a filmmaker, everything I have made has come from my personality. I never make or do anything unless I feel close to it or have experienced it. And I try to bring that into both my characters and films.
Maybe that’s why the characters never give up?
I never give up, indeed, and neither do my characters. Maybe that’s why, unconsciously, I always push my characters to the edge, like in Sound Barrier or Cut. But I try to maintain a balance so they can find a way back. Just like I put myself in difficult situations as a filmmaker, always doing something different. At the start, I never know if I’ll succeed. But slowly and surely, I understand where I'm going and how to get there. I love that zigzag motion. For me, that in-between space is cinema.
Sometimes, there’s a miracle at the end. In Marathon, it’s just the snow; in Manhattan by Numbers, a few dollars from a stranger; in Monte, the rockfall and the sunshine.
I never thought about it that way! I’m an artist, but I’m also human. Since I put my characters through hell, I’ve always thought I should give them something in the end — not necessarily hope or a happy ending, but at least some kind of gift. So, I always give my characters a gift, but it remains a tricky thing. How much should you give?
The tradition of exploring childhood in Iranian cinema is strong. Its roots can be traced back to Sohrab Shahid Saless’ A Simple Event (1973), alongside your 1970s works like Waiting and Harmonica. And then, after the revolution, it becomes a touchstone of Iranian cinema, seen in your films besides those of Kiarostami, Panahi and the like.
With a new government and forms of censorship after the revolution, Abbas Kiarostami and I asked what kind of films could still be made. Their reply was films about animals and children. This is how the new wave of Iranian cinema emerged — through our collective work. It was a great chance for us not to worry about the commercial side. We made films for ourselves, for the kids, for libraries and schools. So, slowly and unconsciously, we made this wave happen. For me, it was especially important because I love The 400 Blows by Truffaut and Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy. That’s why I always wanted to make a trilogy of my own, which I did through Harmonica, Runner, and Water, Wind, Dust.
After Water, Wind, Dust, you decided to move to America. How was the transition from Iran to the USA? There’s an opinion that an outsider can find and see things that are unnoticeable to locals. Was that true for you?
First of all, I'm not a political person at all. My films might come across as political, but that’s just because they stem from my own experiences. I didn’t leave Iran for political reasons. I left because I wanted to go to another world and put myself in a different challenge. It wasn’t a hasty decision. I grew up in Abadan, a modern oil city in the south of Iran, full of foreigners and foreign-language films. So in a way, I knew New York even before I ever saw snow. Going to New York was wild, and that’s exactly why I wanted to go: to put myself, like my characters, in a different and challenging environment. From that new world, I went to Italy and Japan. Now I’m heading to Australia, followed by Iceland. I visit these places multiple times to get a sense of the culture, art, life, and people. Language is not so important to me. what I try to capture is the feeling, the essence of the place.
Spaces in your films are much more than just settings. Whether it’s the streets and subways of New York, the windy, empty deserts of Iran, or the sea, they feel like characters themselves. Even the interiors, walls covered in newspapers, crossword puzzles, or dollar bills, are always saying something.
For Marathon, I spent four months living in the subway, sometimes even sleeping there. You need time to get the feeling of the place, not of the people passing through, but the space itself. You don’t just go down there and say, “Let's make a film about trains.” No. I wanted to make a film of movement, light, editing, and sound. That’s the subway — a manifestation of the future. When I made a film about Las Vegas, I lived there for two years. For Water, Wind, Dust, I spent four months in the desert. Every time, I have to experience the place first, before I can make the film. I carry the idea with me until one day I know that I’m ready. Ideally, the situation itself speaks to me and says: “Amir, you’re ready.”
Alexander Melyan
Photo by Mane Hovhannisyan