Ramin Bahrani is an acclaimed Iranian-American filmmaker known for his focus on the stories of “new Americans” and marginalised individuals within familiar settings. Born in North Carolina in 1975 to Iranian immigrant parents, he is a Columbia University alumnus and was described by Roger Ebert as “the new great American director.”
Bahrani’s first feature film, Man Push Cart (2005) — the story of a former Pakistani rock star who sells coffee and bagels from his pushcart on the streets of Manhattan — premiered at the Venice Film Festival and went on to win over ten international awards. His subsequent films also premiered at either Venice or Cannes.
Chop Shop (2007) tells the story of a twelve-year-old street orphan living and working in Queens, New York, in an area filled with auto repair shops, scrapyards, and garbage dumps. Goodbye Solo (2008), about a Senegalese cab driver and an elderly, depressed American man who hires him for a one-way ride to Blowing Rock, won the International Film Critics’ (FIPRESCI) Award for Best Film in Venice and was hailed as a “masterpiece” by numerous critics.
In 2014, Bahrani directed 99 Homes, a drama set in Florida during the Great Recession, which won the Grand Prix at the 2015 Deauville American Film Festival. He presented the film in Belgrade, too. In 2021, he adapted Aravind Adiga’s 2008 novel The White Tiger, about an ambitious Indian driver who uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.