Keywan Karimi

Born in 1985, Keywan KARIMI is an Iranian filmmaker of Kurdish origin. His film career has a political basis, which is visible through all of his films. His short films, such as Broken Border (2012) and The Adventures of a Married Couple (2013) received awards at numerous international film festivals. Because of his documentary Writing on the City (2016), focusing on the graffiti painted on Tehran walls from the 1979 Islamic Revolution to the 2009 re-election of Mohamoud Ahmadinejad, Karimi was arrested and held in isolation in December 2013. In October 2015, he was condemned to six years in prison and to 223 lashes for “offending Islamic sacredness and propaganda against the system”. In 2016, a few weeks before going to prison, he made Drum, his first feature, which premiered at Venice in the Critics’ Week section. His second feature Do You Know Anything About OMID? was selected for La Fabrique Cinéma at Cannes in 2020.