Maryam Shahriar

Shahriar was born on November 7, 1966, in Tehran.[1] Originally intending to study architecture in Italy, she instead travelled to the United States during the Iran–Iraq War. She studied cinema at California State University, Northridge after watching Fellini's 8½.[2] After graduating, she moved to Rome, Italy and continued studying for her MFA at American University. She worked in the Italian film industry as assistant director and editor.[1]

She returned to Iran when her mother became gravely ill. There she was encouraged by famed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami to write a story for a film project and apply to become a member of the Directors Guild.[2] The first script could not be filmed in time so she came up with the concept for her first feature film Daughters of the Sun.[2]

Daughters of the Sun, filmed in 2000, is about a rural girl, Aman, whose father shaves her hair and dresses her as a boy to work in a rug-making factory in order to support her family. Soon after, a female colleague, believing her to be a boy, falls in love with her and asks her to run away together so her parents won't marry her off to a much older man. Aman has very little time to answer to either save herself or her friend from the misery of a horrific fate.

Daughters of the Sun won several major festival awards including Best Film at Montreal International Film Festival and Best Film at Bratislava International Film Festival. .[3] David Sterritt wrote that it is "[a]cted as a drama, paced like a ritual, filmed as a slice of rural Iranian life."[4] Sheri Whatley regarded the film as a courageous political act: "This portray of a woman with not only her head uncovered, but shaved is quite a brazen act for a director."[5]

• All My Dreams Come True (1986, short)
• In Search of a Lost Dream (1986, short)
• Mommy, Don't Cry (1987, short)
• Lost Love (1990, short)
• Angelica é una brava ragazza (1997, short)
• Dokhtaran Khorshid / Daughters of the Sun (2000, feature)