I had an interview with her to find out more about her life and career:

IranianHotline: Please tell us about your childhood and artistic root in your family:
Aryana Farshad: I was born in Tehran, Iran in a family, who marked the education in Iran. my father, Dr. Fereidoon Farshad was a state PH Doctorate from Sorbonne, Paris, France and a legionnaire from French government, General de Gaulle time.
My uncle, Mr. Esmail khan Merat was minister of culture during Reza Shah’s reign and he is the one who initiated the root of education and physical construction of many educational institutions such as schools, high schools and universities in Iran..

IranianHotline: Did any memory of childhood directed you to film making? When was your first moment that you thought of film making? Did it happen in Iran?
Aryana Farshad: I wanted to be in film since I was a young girl, I could say 10. At age 12, I was a member of Iran’s “Film Society” organized by late Iranian film director/historian and Tehran International Film Festival’ director the Late Hajeer Dariush, very young himself. I think I got this from my parents, mother and father both, who loved films. My mother would take all of us, along with my aunts and cousins to see every single new Hollywood film coming to movie theaters in Tehran and we had a special lodge reserved for us..

IranianHotline: what did you think about “how the regime would handle the fact that a woman is making a film?” Did they bother you at all?
Aryana Farshad: In my case, we are talking about Pahlavi dynasty. It was not much about the regime yet family acceptance which could be an obstacle at that time. we did not have many young girls with my education and family background in film business then.
When I decided to tell my father that I wanted to go to film school in Paris, while I was student at Sorbonne, I was not sure what would be his reaction, regardless he loved good movies. To my surprise, he advised me to be a conscious and good film maker and I was more surprise to hear him sharing that his dream was to become a film maker himself, then in Paris, but duty and country called him for a different destiny.

IranianHotline: What was your main obstacle in your career, And how did you face it?
Aryana Farshad: There were a new generation of educated film makers who came back to Iran and started to work and obviously brought along a different nuance and style of film making, such as the Late Hajeer Dariush, Sohrab Shaheed Sales, Dariush Mehrjouee, Fereidoon Rahnama, and many others and their pioneer work lead to coming of Abass Kia Rostami and later on many younger generation film makers, specially women. When I went back to Tehran from Paris, there were a lot of jealousy, envy and backstabbing toward us which we had to deal with and grow out of it. they didn't like the new bread of young film makers. I didn’t stay in Iran much and left to work on my master at USC in LA.
After hostages, the atmosphere was really hostile here in US and I was working in film business then and suffered a lot of accusation as being Iranian, but I overcame that one too and hopefully left a good and positive space for being Iranian in Hollywood and opened the road for younger generations to come in with respect.

IranianHotline: Did anyone inspired you ever?
Aryana Farshad: At first, I liked big Hollywood movies in general till I grew up and moved to Paris. In Paris I was introduced to a different film making genre, cinema verite like Jean Luc Godard and then to Italian filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Pasolini and Antonioni which I had the opportunity to meet in person at different film festivals. This kind of story telling inspired me, not that I followed that , yet it is still my favorite story telling.

IranianHotline: What was your first film? Where did you make it? Did you have any obstacles on your first film?
Aryana Farshad: Every single film has it’s own obstacle. Making films is like having children and have to grow. Different character, different subjects and different obstacles. I started as film editor on documentary films in Paris , leading to Iran for a short time and then here in LA where I started over as assistant and grow to associate producer on major feature films and television series at MGM or Columbia Pictures for many years. I made a few documentary films before.

IranianHotline: Which one do you like the best, or the most proud of?
Aryana Farshad: My favorite just happened to be Mystic Iran, the Unseen World which came from heart. I am very proud of the outcome and still going strong.

IranianHotline: Which films won award(s)?
Aryana Farshad: Mystic Iran was premiered at many film festivals, museums and organizations and recently won “Audience Favorite Award” at Noor Film Festival in 2008. 2008 was a very awardy year form me. Along with my American producing partner, we won Telly Award and Davey Award for a short film we dedicated to interfaith purposes and interesting enough, to racial conflict in US. Well look what happened? We have an African/American president. So we were not far off from that subject either.

IranianHotline: Did you receive any awards from Iran?
Aryana Farshad: no, no award from Iran.

IranianHotline: Did you play in any of your films?
Aryana Farshad: I am a documentary film maker and do not appear in my films yet. maybe in future time.

IranianHotline: What is your plan for near future? Are you planning to create new projects?
Aryana Farshad: yes, I am working on a few projects and the main is on Maulana Jallal-e-din (RUMI).

IranianHotline: Do you have any message to Iranians and your fans?
Aryana Farshad: I love being Iranian and I dislike to see people changing their names to jack , bob or Jacky, etc.. . why not bringing Iranian names to American culture?
Talk about Iran, Iranian culture and history to your non-Iranian friends and co-workers. Let them in. We know they would fall in love with it, so do it and be it. love. Aryana