Newsletter Subscription

Use this form to sign up for our weekly newsletter, in order to receive Event updates, special deals, and promotional coupons in your area. We will not use your email address to send spam, and we will not provide your contact details to third parties.
  • فارسی
  • Home
  • Near Me
  • News
  • Articles & Entertainment
  • Add Event
  • Add Business
  • Advertise
  • More
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Near Me
  • Events
  • Business
  • Tickets
  • Deals
  • News
  • Latest News
  • Latest Topics
  • Top News
  • Most Visited News
  • Articles & Entertainment
  • Articles
  • Travel
  • Media
  • Near Me
  • Entertainment News
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Health & Science
  • Iranians in Diaspora
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Blog
  • Travel
  • Tehran
  • Isfahan
  • Shiraz
  • Yazd
  • Persepolis
  • Kashan
  • Media
  • Radio/TV Stations
  • Music
  • Videos
  • More
  • Iranian Calendar
Kodoom
Kodoom.com فارسی
We Collect Iran-Related News and Local Events
Change Los Angeles
  • Home
  • Near Me
    • Events
    • Business
    • Tickets
    • Deals
  • News News
    • Latest News
    • Latest Topics
    • Top News
    • Most Visited News
  • Editorials & Media
    • Articles

      Entertainment News
      Politics
      Culture
      Health & Science
      Iranians in Diaspora
      Economy
      Sports
      Blog

      Travel

      Tehran
      Isfahan
      Shiraz
      Yazd
      Persepolis
      Kashan

      Media

      Radio/TV Stations
      Music
      Videos
  • Add
    • Add Event
    • Add Business
    • Advertise
  • More
    • Prominent Iranians
    • Pinglish to Farsi
    • Iranian Calendar
    • Search in:
  • Login
  • Subscribe
Home
Features
Entertainment

Golshifteh Farahani: My parents are being held hostage in Iran!

Sept 10, 2012
Iranians in Diaspora , Entertainment

Excerpts of an original article published in Guardian (Thursday 6 September 2012) follows. Also a recent interview of Farahani with BBC is embedded:

Golshifteh Farahani in Venice Film Festival, September 2011

In January of this year the parents of the exiled Iranian actor Golshifteh Farahani took a call at their apartment in Tehran from a man who said he was an official of the supreme court of the Islamic Republic. He began shouting at her father, telling him that his daughter would be punished, that her breasts would be cut off and presented to him on a plate.

A few days earlier, Farahani had appeared in a short black-and-white video with 30 other "young hopes" of the French cinema to promote the Césars, the "French Oscars", where she had been nominated for her role in the winsome immigrant comedy Si Tu Meurs, Je Te Tue (If You Die, I'll Kill You). The promo had each actor take off an item of clothing as they stared into the camera to commit their "body and soul" to their art. Farahani chose to bare her right breast, saying: "I will put flesh to your dreams."

What followed in Iran was little short of a cultural earthquake. "It was a catastrophe," she remembers, her head dropping into her hands. "I don't know exactly how many tens of millions of people typed my name into Google the next day, I don't want to know …" A taboo of unimaginable proportions had been shattered, and not by some publicity-hungry provocateur, but by the most loved and admired actor in the country.

.......

Golshifteh Farahani

Farahani had already been banned from working by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for not wearing a headscarf at the New York premiere of Ridley Scott's CIA thriller Body of Lies, where, playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, she became the first Iranian actress to appear in a Hollywood film since the 1979 revolution.

The film's critical take on the CIA – which overthrew Iran's last freely elected government in 1953 – cut little ice with the ayatollahs, who took her passport away as further punishment. Four years ago, with doors closing all around her amid a pre-election crackdown that would eventually spark the green revolution, Farahani fled to France after being in effect fined the impossible-to-pay sum of €2m. When she spoke out from Paris in favour of the failed green revolution, she was told not to return.

......

But that was before she slipped her shoulder out of her shirt with the unconscious air of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People and became a lightning conductor for the divisions within Iranian society. Ahmadinejad is never likely to be so forgiving again.

Farahani insists, however, that she did not set out to shock or provoke. "I hate politics. It is not my job. As always, something you do for nothing becomes political. I knew it would be difficult. But I am living in France now, I have to work here, and either I am living here or I am not.

"It was a big shock for me and my family and for the whole of Iranian society. The good thing is it started a huge debate that could never have happened before. I was there watching people insult me, others answering them, others defending me, others attacking again.

"There were lots of fights within families. Young people especially saw who they were through this debate, and they saw the reality of people they were trusting in."

The collateral damage was nevertheless immense. Her father, a lion of a man, a communist theatre director and a dissident both under the shah and Khomeini, stopped talking for five days and had to be admitted to hospital after repeated threats. "It was very bad. This was the first time they couldn't support me. The fire was so strong that they were also burning in it.

"I should be careful because I know they are being held hostage … But then after a while, because of the background of my father – who dragged himself up from very humble origins – their feelings began to change. My father was afraid I had lost the support of the people, which is very important to him, because he has spent his whole life battling for the people, sacrificing everything. But after a month or two he saw the people had more respect for me, and he became very happy.

Golshifteh Farahani (by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe)

"They even went to a wedding of nomads in the centre of Iran. Everyone from all the generations came to them and held their hands and said: 'Don't be sad. We love Golshifteh.' My mother started crying. That is the beauty of Iran, and that is why I am so proud of being an Iranian, especially the women."

But Farahani doesn't want to be a "Joan of Arc, an actress 'with a story', an exotic victim of persecution: "Exile is like death. You cannot understand it until it happens to you. The whole world wants to see you as a victim and they push you to be even more a victim because they see you miserable and they feel good. That is why French people are so obsessed with causes like Syria. It is a kind of pornography to make them feel better about being themselves, but they don't give a shit. They say, 'Come, we will look after you,' and then they fuck you up and don't give you papers. I am just an actor, and I want to work."

That said, she is hugely grateful to France. "For the first time in my life I appreciated being a woman. Paris is a city that liberates you as a woman from all your sins that you think you are guilty of, it washes away all of that and you are free."

She pulls a white scarf around her shoulders. It's her old headscarf, "my old friend". "The biggest problem for Iranian actresses," she says is not the government but the world outside "who think we come out of our mothers with our heads covered".

"Look at Leila Hatami. Normally after winning an Oscar [for Farhadi's A Separation] you get lots of work. But nothing is happening and she speaks four languages."

.....

Golshifteh Farahani in Vogue Paris, May 2011

Like her father, Farahani is a fundamentalist about art. She tells how Farhadi "tortured" her on the set of About Elly, forcing her to break her voice for the part, making her shout at the Caspian sea for half an hour every morning before shooting and swallow chickpea flour so she could only croak and rasp. Her eardrum was perforated in the beating she took from another actor and he refused to let her be treated till they finished the next day. They haven't spoken since. "He's my friend but he cannot talk to me. He is still coming and going from Iran. I am evil now. Paranoia is part of how they control you."

"I have scars from every film I have made," she says, lifting her sleeve and leg to show me. "There is nothing to protect actors. They treat you worse than a dog. You work like a slave, and you know I like it. That is the way it should be. Every film should be like your last."


Excerpts of an original article published in Guardian (Thursday 6 September 2012) by Fiachra Gibbons: "Golshifteh Farahani: 'Exile from Iran is like death'"

Other Features Related to Golshifteh Farahani:

  • Golshifteh Farahani appears naked again in controversial new movie (video)
  • Golshifteh Farahani in Vogue Paris
  • Golshifteh Farahani in "Rumi's Kimia" by Mehrjui
  • Golshifteh Farahani stars in films by Roland Joffé and Hiner Saleem
  • Golshifteh Farahani in defense of Jafar Pahani
  • Golshifteh Farahani's new song about "prince of my dreams"

More Related to Cinema on Kodoom.com:

  • Iranian-born Boniadi: A scientologist "auditioned" as Tom Cruise’s wife?
  • Indian Bollywood's music mogul plagiarises Iranian band Barobax
  • Niki-Kermani defies taboos in her film about an immigrant Iranian woman
  • Golshifteh Farahani appears naked again in controversial new movie (video)
  • (Video/Images) Leila Hatami announces Cannes 2012 Grand Prix (Grand Prize)
  • Lindsay Lohan: 25 Years in 60 seconds
  • Amazing LED light suit dance inspired by TRON (the movie)
  • Is this the prettiest woman's face?
  • TV show about Iranian-Americans premieres strongly (video)
  • Disorderly welcome reception for Farhadi in Tehran airport
  • American TV show portrays Iranians as successful, spoiled and dysfunctuonal!
  • "A Separation" by Farhadi wins an Oscar (Video)
  • Project X, A wild directorial debut for Iranian-British Nima Nourizadeh
  • Sad story of Macaulay Culkin and other child stars
  • Oliver Stone's son receives award from Ahmadinejad in Tehran
© 2025 Kodoom LLC All Rights Reserved
Golshifteh Farahani
Women
Cinema

Nearby Events or Businesses

Iranian Events Around the World Sponsored Ad

Iranian Events Around the World

Iranian Events Around the World

We process 500-1000 new events every month using data robots and user/advertiser submissions, and then list them on local maps in bilingual user-friendly Geo-targeted searchable formats. Try adding your event via our online form.
Advertise with us Sponsored Ad

Advertise with us

Advertise with us

Lower cost than Facebook, TV, Paper or Radio Ads: Show your ad to Geo-targeted users next to other top news and popular events for only $10-$50 per thousand viewers. Check out our advertisement packages.
Iranian Events Around the World Sponsored Ad

Iranian Events Around the World

Iranian Events Around the World

We process 500-1000 new events every month using data robots and user/advertiser submissions, and then list them on local maps in bilingual user-friendly Geo-targeted searchable formats. Try adding your event via our online form.
Sponsored Ad
Previous Next

News

  • MOST VISITED
  • TOP
  • LATEST
New US-backed group says it has begun aid ...
BBC -   May 27, 2025
Man charged over killing of Jordanian pilot ...
BBC -   May 27, 2025
Crowds overrun US-backed group's new aid ...
BBC -   May 27, 2025
Hopes of motherhood crushed after IVF embryos ...
BBC -   22 hours ago
Hundreds of lawyers call for UK sanctions on ...
BBC -   May 27, 2025
EU says Israeli strikes in Gaza 'go beyond ...
BBC -   Nine hours ago
Iranian cleric arrested in Saudi Arabia was ...
15 hours ago
EU says Israeli strikes in Gaza 'go beyond ...
BBC - Nine hours ago
Hopes of motherhood crushed after IVF embryos ...
BBC - 22 hours ago
Crowds overrun US-backed group's new aid ...
BBC - May 27, 2025
Hundreds of lawyers call for UK sanctions on ...
BBC - May 27, 2025
Man charged over killing of Jordanian pilot ...
BBC - May 27, 2025
New US-backed group says it has begun aid ...
BBC - May 27, 2025
Young girl escapes burning Gaza school after ...
BBC - May 26, 2025
Head of controversial Israel-backed Gaza aid ...
BBC - May 26, 2025
Israeli strikes across Gaza kill 24, medics ...
BBC - May 25, 2025
Call for freeze on Syrian asylum claims to end
BBC - May 25, 2025
'Situation is dire' - BBC returns to Gaza baby ...
BBC - May 25, 2025
Father of nine children killed by Israeli ...
BBC - May 25, 2025
Israeli strike kills nine of Gaza doctor's ...
BBC - May 24, 2025
Chaos spreads as desperate Gazans wait for ...
BBC - May 23, 2025
As Israel faces diplomatic 'tsunami', Trump is ...
BBC - May 23, 2025
Netanyahu accuses Starmer of siding with Hamas
BBC - May 22, 2025
Suspect charged with murder of two Israeli ...
BBC - May 22, 2025
UN says 90 lorry loads of aid now in Gaza ...
BBC - May 22, 2025
Israeli museum victim 'was planning to propose'
BBC - May 22, 2025
Investigating Israel's strike on Gaza's ...
BBC - May 22, 2025
What we know about Israeli embassy staff shooting
BBC - May 22, 2025
Gazans fear shutdown of water plants as Israel ...
BBC - May 21, 2025
US accepts Qatari plane into Air Force One fleet
BBC - May 21, 2025
Anti-Hamas protests in southern Gaza enter ...
BBC - May 21, 2025
Israel fires 'warning shots' near diplomats in ...
BBC - May 21, 2025
UK steps up action against Israel over Gaza ...
BBC - May 20, 2025
Gaza baby sent back to war zone after ...
BBC - May 20, 2025
Rubio warns Syria could be weeks away from ...
BBC - May 20, 2025
UN says no aid yet distributed in Gaza as ...
BBC - May 20, 2025
UK sanctions 'godmother' of Israel's settler ...
BBC - May 20, 2025
At least 38 killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza ...
BBC - May 20, 2025
Jeremy Bowen: Goodwill running out as UK, ...
BBC - May 19, 2025
UK, France and Canada threaten action against ...
BBC - May 19, 2025
Israel lets aid into Gaza after 11-week ...
BBC - May 19, 2025
Iran and Britain summon envoys over alleged ...
BBC - May 19, 2025
Israel orders Khan Younis evacuation ahead of ...
BBC - May 19, 2025
Israeli forces besiege Gaza hospital as Hamas ...
BBC - May 18, 2025
Hamas proposes releasing some hostages in ...
BBC - May 17, 2025
Trump's frantic week of peace brokering hints ...
BBC - May 16, 2025
'My children go to sleep hungry,' Gazans tell ...
BBC - May 16, 2025
Nearly 100 people killed in Israeli attack on ...
BBC - May 16, 2025
Israel qualifies for Eurovision final after ...
BBC - May 15, 2025
Iran using criminal gangs for hit jobs abroad, ...
BBC - May 15, 2025
Construction sites appear in Gaza ahead of ...
BBC - May 15, 2025
US and Iran close to nuclear deal, Trump says
BBC - May 15, 2025
Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill 56 ...
BBC - May 15, 2025
Pregnant Israeli woman killed in West Bank ...
BBC - May 15, 2025
BBC joins Gaza children as they are evacuated ...
BBC - May 14, 2025
Trump's critics and supporters unite against ...
BBC - May 14, 2025
Israel issues major evacuation order for ...
BBC - May 14, 2025
Trump's meeting with Sharaa, unthinkable just ...
BBC - May 14, 2025
Israeli strikes in northern Gaza kill at least ...
BBC - May 14, 2025
Human rights groups warn of 'surge' in migrant ...
BBC - May 14, 2025
BBC cameraman haunted by Gaza's malnourished ...
BBC - May 13, 2025
British tourist to be deported from Israel
BBC - May 13, 2025
Gaza photojournalist Hassan Aslih killed in ...
BBC - May 13, 2025
'I've practised being booed', Israel's ...
BBC - May 12, 2025
Gaza parents desperate as children face ...
BBC - May 12, 2025
Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander ...
BBC - May 12, 2025
Entire Gaza population at critical risk of ...
BBC - May 12, 2025
BBC team's tense encounter with sanctioned ...
BBC - May 11, 2025
Hamas to release US-Israeli hostage as part of ...
BBC - May 11, 2025
US says latest round of nuclear talks with ...
BBC - May 11, 2025
US confirms plan for private firms to deliver ...
BBC - May 9, 2025
Israeli forces close UN-run schools in East ...
BBC - May 8, 2025
Israel PM 'uncertain' over condition of three ...
BBC - May 8, 2025
Israeli embassy in London was target of ...
BBC - May 7, 2025
'This will be the work of years': The medics ...
BBC - May 7, 2025
Israeli strikes on Gaza City restaurant and ...
BBC - May 7, 2025
Houthis say US 'backed down' and Israel not ...
BBC - May 7, 2025
Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu's plan for Gaza risks ...
BBC - May 6, 2025
Trump says US to stop attacking Houthis in ...
BBC - May 6, 2025
Israel attacks main airport in Yemen's capital ...
BBC - May 6, 2025
'No food when I gave birth': Malnutrition ...
BBC - May 6, 2025
Hamas says Gaza talks pointless while Israel ...
BBC - May 6, 2025
Americans used to be steadfast in their ...
BBC - May 5, 2025
Israel strikes Houthi targets in Yemen a day ...
BBC - May 5, 2025
Popemobile to become health clinic for Gaza ...
BBC - May 5, 2025
Israel security cabinet approves plan to ...
BBC - May 5, 2025
Israeli army starts calling up reservists for ...
BBC - May 4, 2025
Eight arrested in two separate anti-terror ...
BBC - May 4, 2025
Syrian security forces 'oversaw' armed ...
BBC - May 4, 2025
Houthi missile hits near Israel's main airport
BBC - May 4, 2025
'I saved my ID card and my dog': Israel ...
BBC - May 2, 2025
Israel says it struck near Syria palace over ...
BBC - May 2, 2025
Activists say ship aiming to sail to Gaza was ...
BBC - May 2, 2025
Two Gazan girls first to arrive in UK for ...
BBC - May 2, 2025
Gaza kitchens warn food will run out in days ...
BBC - May 2, 2025
Israel fires largely controlled after mass ...
BBC - May 1, 2025
Deadly clashes in Syria's Druze areas raise ...
BBC - May 1, 2025
Israeli reservists speak out against Gaza war ...
BBC - Apr 30, 2025
Chaos on roads as residents flee rampant ...
BBC - Apr 30, 2025
Israel says it struck gunmen attacking Druze ...
BBC - Apr 30, 2025
First UK strikes on Houthis in Yemen under Trump
BBC - Apr 30, 2025
Israeli forces arrest prominent Palestinian ...
BBC - Apr 30, 2025
Life inside Iraq's 'Forbidden Zone' controlled ...
BBC - Apr 29, 2025
Gaza medic detained during deadly Israeli ...
BBC - Apr 29, 2025
Iran blames 'negligence' for port blast as ...
BBC - Apr 29, 2025
Israel spy chief to step down after row with ...
BBC - Apr 28, 2025
Top UN court examining if Israel must ...
BBC - Apr 28, 2025

Editorials

Cannes 2025: De Niro, Panahi Lash Out at Trump, Ayatollahs

Cannes 2025: De Niro, Panahi Lash Out at Trump, Ayatollahs

What's Next? Trump and Iranian Leader Fully Disagree on Terms ...

What's Next? Trump and Iranian Leader Fully Disagree on Terms ...

Analyst Refers to Iran's Plasma and UFO Weapons and ...

Analyst Refers to Iran's Plasma and UFO Weapons and ...

What is Causing Widespread Power Outages in Iran?

What is Causing Widespread Power Outages in Iran?

The Risks Associated with Metformin and Ozempic

The Risks Associated with Metformin and Ozempic

Music for Your Soul from Pete Seeger

Advertise with us
Lower cost than Facebook, TV, Paper or radio Ads: Reach Geo-targeted users for only $10-$50 per thousand viewers. Check out our advertisement packages.
Need our help?
Our growth depends on serving our user community. Email our Customer Support with questions, comments, business offers, interesting news, video links, etc.

About us

  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Tickets and Advertisement
  • How to Link to us

Add to our listings

  • An Event
  • A Local Business
  • A Distinguished Iranian

Near You

  • Events
  • Tickets
  • Coupons
  • Local Ads

My Account

  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe to Newsletter
  • Change Location
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
© 2025 Kodoom LLC, All Rights Reserved. An independent private partnership incorporated in USA.
Kodoom is a Search and Listing Service and not responsible for contents and accuracy of listings, maps and advertisements.
Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.