Granaz Moussavi

Her second feature film, When Pomegranates Howl, was nominated for the 14th Asia Pacific Screen Awards as the Best Youth Feature Film, and was selected as Australian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.

• Name — Granaz Moussavi • Native Name — گراناز موسوی • Born — 1974 • Birthplace — Tehran, Iran • Citizenship — Australian • Occupation — Poet, film director • Known for — Avant-garde poetry, film • Notable Works — My Tehran for Sale (2009) When Pomegranates Howl (2021)

Granaz Moussavi was born in Tehran in 1974. Her father was a sound engineer at the main TV station in Tehran, and her mother was a video grader. She went to Razi primary school and Hadaf High School in Tehran. When she was young she often spent time with her parents at the television studios, and had her first acting role in a film made by her father. Her love for cinema and theatre changed her mind about tertiary education. She withdrew from a B.Sc. at Alzahra University and took various drama courses in Tehran, focusing on acting. These included Hamid Samandarian's drama workshops at the Theatre Organization of Tehran, and Mahin Oskouei's underground acting classes held in her apartment. Granaz then worked at a literary magazine in Tehran, and also taught literature and languages. Granaz emigrated to Australia with her family in her early twenties, joining relatives already settled in the country, and became a citizen within two years. She started to study filmmaking at Flinders University in Adelaide. In 2002, she made her honours film, A Short Film About Colour, shot by Iranian cinematographer Firooz Malekzadeh. The short film earned Granaz the best director award from the university, and an honorary membership to the Australian Screen Directors Authorship Collecting Society (ASDAS). After receiving an honours degree from Flinders University, Granaz was accepted into the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney. She graduated with a graduate diploma in film editing in 2006. She was a doctoral candidate with a scholarship at the University of Western Sydney researching "The Aesthetics of Poetic Cinema".

At the age of 17, Granaz started writing professionally as a book reviewer and literary critic at "Donyaye Sokhan literary magazine (مجلهٔ ادبی دنیای سخن") in Tehran. Her first poems were published in 1989, and since then, she has continued writing and publishing poetry in various magazines and collections in Iran and other countries. Granaz published her first book of poetry, Khatkhati Rooye Shab خط خطی روی شب (Sketching On Night), underground in Tehran in 1996. Her second book, Paberahneh Ta Sobh پابرهنه تا صبح (Barefoot Till Morning), was the winner of جایزه شعر کارنامه یاجایزه شعر امروز ایران Karnameh’s best poetry book of the year award in 2001, and went to at least a fourth edition. She published her third collection, Avazhaye Zan e Biejazeh آوازهای زن بی اجازه (The Songs of the Forbidden Woman), in 2003. A second edition was published. Her poems have been anthologised worldwide and a bilingual collection was published in France by MEET publishers. Granaz published Les Rescapes De La Patience (translated by Farideh Rava and with a preface by Jean Baptiste Para) after a sponsored literary residency in Saint Nazaire, France. In the field of poetry, she has conducted many poetry readings worldwide, including her participation in the Paris Autumn Festival in 2000 (introduced and translated by Media Kashigar, managed by Alain Lance), SOAS/London University in 2001, Vienna and Mondorf/Luxembourg in 2003, Saint Nazaire, Nantes, Marseille, Arles/France in 2004–5, Sydney/Australia in 2005, “Caravan of poetry” through Paris, La Rochelle, Marseille, Poitier, and Nantes/France in 2006, the Fifth International Festival of Poetry “Merci Poesie”, Gothenburg/Sweden in 2008, the Iranian Arts and Literature Festival, San Francisco/USA in 2009, and Luxemburg in 2009. She gave a lecture followed by a poetry reading at Stanford University in February 2009 and University of California at Irvine in January 2011. Much has been written about Granaz's poetry, including by some renowned Iranian writers and critics such as M. Azad, Jalil Doustkhah, Mohammad Rahim Okhovat, Shahrnoush Parsipour, and Ali Babachahi. Her poetry has been translated and published in French, English, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Kurdish.

• 2006 Love On Track, a 4 minutes drama, Director: Alison Heather. • 2005 Karma, 3 minutes experimental short film, Director: Josh Tylor, AFTRS. • 2005 Look Sharp, an 8 minutes drama, Director: Amy Gebhardt, AFTRS. Winner of Best student film at The International Melbourne Film Festival. • 2005 Rock! I gave you the best years of my life, a 6 minutes documentary, Director: Mathew Walker, AFTRS • 2003-2004 Turtles Can Fly, a feature film by Bahman Ghobadi, Tehran-Iran & Kurdistan-Iraq (on-set digital editing)

Granaz Moussavi is recorded with the occupation film director. Recorded as film director, screenwriter, poet and writer.

• 2020: When Pomegranates Howl • 2009: My Tehran for Sale, a feature film (as writer/director; produced by Cyan Films)

• 2008 Into Pieces, a video art • 2007 Rats Sleep at Night, a short drama • 2006 1001 Nights, a documentary on Persian poetry in exile. • 2005 Narrative Theatre Workshop, a 5-hour video, Producer: Relationships S.A. • 2004 Just Tenants of the Earth, a 30-minute documentary on young refugees and migrants in Australia • 2004 A Slice Of Tehran Girls, a 30-minute documentary on young girls in Tehran. • 2002 A Short Film About Colour, a 10-minute short fiction, Honours production, Flinders University. • 2002 An uncompleted documentary on Woomera Detention Centre • 2000 A Letter to a Friend, an 8-minute documentary, University of South Australia • 1999 The Restroom, an 8-minute doco-drama, Flinders University • 1999 Smoke, a 27-second advertisement