Ali Mosaffa

Ali Mosaffa (born December 1, 1966 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian actor, director, screenwriter and producer. He hails from a distinguished literary family; his father Mozaher Mosaffa, a poet and professor of Persian literature at University of Tehran, and his mother Amir Banoo Karimi, a renowned scholar, gave him a deep appreciation for Persian culture. Mosaffa earned a civil engineering degree at the University of Tehran but was drawn to the performing arts, making his screen debut in the 1991 film Omid. His breakthrough came a year later when he won the Best Male Actor award at the Fajr International Film Festival for his role in Dariush Mehrjui's Pari. During the production of Mehrjui's 1996 film Leila, he met actress Leila Hatami, whom he married in 1999; the couple has two children, Mani (born 2007) and Assal (born 2008).

Mosaffa transitioned to directing with short works such as Incubus (1991) and The Neighbor (1999), before releasing his first feature, Portrait of a Lady Far Away (2005). The film was shortlisted for the Sutherland Trophy at the BFI London Film Festival and earned both the People’s Choice Award at the Chicago Iranian Film Festival and a nomination for the Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary. His second feature, The Last Step (2012), won the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Prize at Karlovy Vary and secured a Crystal Globe for Best Actress for Leila Hatami. He later appeared alongside Bérénice Bejo and Tahar Rahim in Asghar Farhadi’s The Past (2013) and has produced acclaimed titles such as Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness (Sundance Grand Jury Prize 2020) and A Tale of Shemroon (Marakesh IFF Best Feature 2022). Mosaffa’s career is marked by a blend of artistic rigor and interdisciplinary collaboration, making him a pivotal figure in contemporary Iranian cinema.