Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, music composer and scholar.
Sinai's work was influenced by documentary and focused on social and artistic subjects. "Bride of Fire" is among his best known movies, and has won multiple awards in both domestic and international film festivals. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran and has been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
Biography
Khosrow Sinai was born on 19 January 1941 in Sari, north of Iran. He graduated in 1958 from Alborz High School in Tehran, and then went to Austria for further education. He spent four years studying Architecture at the Vienna University of Technology and three years study in music composition at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He graduated in music education from the Vienna Music Conservatory. Finally he graduated as cinema and television director and screenplay writing from Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.In 1963 he also published a poetry collection Muds Blisters.
After these years of study he returned to Iran in 1967 and worked in the Ministry of Culture and Arts, and as instructor in various universities in the fields of screenplay writing and documentary film until 1992.
He also worked in National Iranian Television as producer, screenplay writer, director, and editor making about 100 short films, documentaries, and features. He is best known for his Avant-garde documentaries and also his unique style in docu-drama. He has been a juror in several national and foreign film festivals.
Filmography
"Arus-e Atash", was one of his most successful films in box office and won the people's choice award, and best screenplay at the 18th Fajr Film Festival. In addition, Sinai won a Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1977 | Impressions of a City, Tehran Today | Director | |
| 1979 | Long live | ||
| 1980 | Viva...! | award winner in Karlovy Vary Film Festival | |
| 1983 | The Inner Beast | Director | 2nd Fajr Festival as the best director |
| 1983 | The Lost Requiem | documentary about the Poles who found refuge in Iran during World War II, after being forcibly taken by the Soviet regime to Soviet labor camps in Siberia. | |
| 1987 | Going astray... | ||
| 1990 | In the Alleys of Love | presented at the Un Certain Regard section at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival | |
| 1997 | Autumn Alley | documentary/fiction, shown at the IDFA Film Festival - Amsterdam | |
| 1999 | The Bride of Fire | award-winning in several national and foreign festivals, about wedding customs and the tradition of compulsory marriage in the tribes of southern Iran. | |
| 2005 | Talking with a Shadow | A documentary-drama film about Sadeq Hedayat. | |
| 2005 | The Carpet, the Horse, the Turkoman | ||
| 2006 | The Desert of Blood | ||
| 2014 | Rainbow Island |
Published books and screenplays
- The Man in White
- The Artists of a Bloodshedding Era
- The Bride of Fire
- The Post-communist Cinema.
- The Lost Requiem
- Translation from German: My Journey and Adventures in Iran, a book by Ármin Vámbéry.
Personal life
Sinai lived with his two wives for years, a Hungarian woman Gizella Varga Sinai, and Farah Ossouli, both painters. His three daughters are artists, and his one son is a scientist.Sinai was diagnosed with Coronavirus disease 2019 in late July 2020, after spending months in the hospital for lung infections. On 1 August 2020, Sinai died of the disease in a hospital in Tehran at the age of 79.