Tara Aghdashloo

Tara Aghdashloo is a poet, writer and filmmaker born in Iran. As a journalist she worked on a number of docs and doc-series for television (BBC, Channel 4), as well as publishing her essays, short stories, articles, and poetry (The Guardian, The New Inquiry, Financial Times, and more), focusing on Middle Eastern and international politics, culture, and women’s issues. In recent years she’s been writing, directing and producing independent films and docs, as well as music videos and commercials. In 2019 she completed a masterclass with renowned director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and the London Film Academy, who remains as her mentor, and she was a participant at Sundance Collab’s Directing Actors Lab in autumn 2021. Her first narrative short, THE RIDE, was commissioned by BFI Network and Canada Council for the Arts with the support of Toronto Arts Council, and premieres in March 2023. Tara is in preproduction for her third short film EMPTY YOUR POCKETS produced by OPC, while working on her first narrative feature, DRY CLEAN, about a young Afghan woman, with development funds from Telefilm Canada. Tara’s an advocate for BIPOC and women, and diversity in film and she continues to advocate, speak on panels, have workshops, and write on the subjects that she’s passionate about.