Shirin Neshat

Personal Info

Known For

Directing

Known Credits

0.5386

Gender

Female

Birthday

26-Mar-1957

Age

(69 years old)

Place of Birth

Qazvin, Iran

Also Known As

شیرین نشاط

Shirin Neshat

Biography

Shirin Neshat ( شیرین نشاط‎, born March 26, 1957 Qazvin) is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centers on the contrasts between Islam and the West, femininity and masculinity, public life and private life, antiquity and modernity, and bridging the spaces between these subjects. Since Iran has undermined basic human rights, particularly since the Islamic Revolution she has said that she has "gravitated toward making art that is concerned with tyranny, dictatorship, oppression and political injustice. Although I don’t consider myself an activist, I believe my art – regardless of its nature – is an expression of protest, a cry for humanity.” Neshat has been recognized countless times for her work, from winning the International Award of the XLVIII Venice Biennale in 1999, to winning the Silver Lion for best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival in 2009, to being named Artist of the Decade by Huffington Post critic G. Roger Denson. Neshat is a critic in the photography department at the Yale School of Art.

Credits

Soliloquy (1999) Character: N/A
Two screens face each other in a dark room, only a bench off to the side interrupting the space between them. Settling into this interstitial expanse of Shirin Neshat’s Soliloquy (1999), viewers become mediators, with the series of scenes on each screen flowing not past, but through this audience – asking them, perhaps, to act as witnesses to the ensuing visual dialogue. The titles begin, in English and Persian; then, the sole character appears, clad in black robes and played by Neshat herself. She is looking out of two different windows: one in Albany, New York; the other in Mardin, Turkey, not far from the artist’s native Iran.

Axis of Light (2011) Character: N/A
Seen through the work of eight leading artists from the Middle East, Axis of Light is a poignant and absorbing observation of the influences of conflict.

9/11/03: A Day in the Life of New York (2005) Character: N/A
New Yorkers such as novelist Salman Rushdie, Yankees manager Joe Torre and hip-hop star Russell Simmons discuss how 9/11 altered their perception of the world.

K (2002) Character: Housekeeper
Three stories. We see, but little is explained. In "The Married Couple," a salesman pays a call on an old customer who is with his wife in the upstairs bedroom of their ill adult son. Another salesman may beat him to the punch, but not before disorienting changes. A maid scrubs the floor. "In the Penal Colony": a man arrives at a penal colony where an officer demonstrates a bizarre apparatus, one that punches a message into the skin of a prisoner strapped beneath it. Who will be punished? In "Fratricide," a man is murdered at night by someone he knows well. A woman grieves.

Kann Kreativität die Welt retten? (2024) Character: Self
The final part of the Creativity Trilogy explores existential threats our world is facing. An inspiring film about imagination's power and a hopeful glimpse into the future.

آه چه روزهای خوشی بود (2025) Character: N/A
On the eve of losing her family estate, actress Homa is blackmailed by a government agent with a compromising tape. Forced into a real-time video call with her estranged family, which has been exiled since the 1979 Revolution, decades of silence explode into raw confrontation. As old wounds resurface and accusations fly, the line between past and present blurs. Secrets unravel, betrayals are laid bare, and the long-buried fate of two sons lost to history comes roaring back.

Body of Truth (2020) Character: Self
Four female artists have been politicized by experiences with war, violence and suppression and integrated them into their work, using their most personal tool: their own bodies.

War Paint: Women at War (2025) Character: Self
Shining a light on the trailblazing role of women war artists, on the front lines round the world, championing the female perspective on conflict through art and asking: when it's life or death, what do women see that men don't?

Shirin Neshat

Personal Info

Shirin Neshat

Biography

Credits

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