VOICE OF SILENCE

PANAHBARKHODA REZAEE
Film Director, Writer and Producer

Panahbarkhoda Rezaee is an international award-winning film director, writer and film producer. He is a Graduated Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinematic Film Directing at Tehran Soureh University in 2000, Iran. He has earned international acclaim for his independent art films, often addressing humanitarian issues, particularly those affecting children and women in the Middle East. His visually stunning works blend innovative concepts with poetic narratives, bridging cinema, poetry, and painting. Rezaee's films, traversing the realms of fiction and non-fiction, have been lauded by prestigious international media outlets like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

His first acclaimed 35mm feature film called "A LIGHT IN THE FOG" winner of the GOLDEN APHRODITE, love is folly, at the international film festival in Bulgaria in 2010. "A LIGHT IN THE FOG" winner of the Best Director Award, Best Director of Photography Award, and Best Actress Award at the Kazan International Film Festival in 2009. Additional achievements include : "A LIGHT IN THE FOG" winner of the Best Director of Photography Award, Festival Trophy, Roshd International Film Festival in Iran in 2010. Nominated as NEW TALENT GRAND PRIX, CPH PIX Copenhagen International Film Festival, Denmark in 2009. Nomination Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Achievement In Cinematography, Australia, 2009. Nomination of the NEW CURRENTS Award, Pusan International Film Festival, 2008.

His second feature film titled "DAUGHTER… FATHER… DAUGHTER" winner of the GRAND PRIX Shakens Stars Almaty International Film Festival, Kazakhstan, 2013. Winner of the Best Film Award, winner of the Artistic Creativity Award, winner of the GOLDEN JASMINE, Tehran International Video Film Festival, Iran, 2012. Winner of the NETPAC AWARD, NETWORK FOR THE PROMOTION OF ASIAN CINEMA, Festival Trophy, and Honorary Diploma, Asiatica Film Festival, Italy, 2011.

His third 35mm feature film titled "A CRADLE FOR MOTHER" winner of the NETPAC AWARD, NETWORK FOR THE PROMOTION OF ASIAN CINEMA, Festival Trophy, and Honorary Diploma, Moscow International Film Festival, Russia, 2013. Furthermore, winner of the Best Director Award, winner of the Best Artistic Achievement Award, and winner of the Best Actress Award, Fajr International Film Festival, Iran, 2013.

He at first competed with the 35 mm short film "THE OLD MAN AND THE RAIL" and the film got to the competitive section of the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France in 2007, which is one of the most prestigious international short film festivals in the world and was approved by the Oscar Academy.

His documentary, "EYES AND ARMS" in 2020, winner of the HONORABLE MENTION AWARD of the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival in Canada. As well as : Winner of the Best Feature Documentary Award, Oslo International Film Festival, Norway, 2021.

Panahbarkhoda Rezaee is founder of Panah Film Productions in Canada. He is currently writing a new script, which will begin production in Vancouver, Canada, after the script is finished.

FILMOGRAPHY :

DOCUMENTARY FILMS :
• THIS IS LIFE : Director, Producer and Researcher, Canada, 2025
• VAYU : Director, Producer and Researcher, Iran, 2020
• EYES AND ARMS : Director, Producer and Researcher, Iran, 2019
• VOICE OF SILENCE : Director, Producer and Researcher, Iran, Iraq, 2016
• CARNIVAL : Director, Producer and Researcher, Iran, 2014
• DRAGONFLY DREAM : Director and Researcher, Italy, 2011
• SEASON OF UNION : Director and Researcher, Iran, 2008
• PALMS DIE STANDING : Director, Producer and Researcher, Iran, 2005
• AUTHENTIC DAY : Researcher and Director, Iran, 2004
• THE BALLAD OF LIFE : Director, Producer and Researcher, Iran, 2003
• A FRAME OF LIFE : Director, Producer and Researcher, 16 mm, Iran,1996
• SLAUGHTERHOUSE : Director, Producer and Researcher, 16 mm, Iran, 1995

FEATURE FILMS :
• A CRADLE FOR MOTHER : Director and Producer, Drama, 35 mm, Iran, 2013
• DAUGHTER … MOTHER … DAUGHTER : Director, Writer and Producer, Drama, Iran, 2012
• DAUGHTER … FATHER … DAUGHTER : Director, Writer and Producer, Drama, Iran, 2011
• A LIGHT IN THE FOG : Director, Writer and Producer, Drama, 35 mm, Iran, 2008

TV MOVIES :
• SPARROW SPRING : Director and Producer, Drama, Iran, 2016
• THE WEEPING PALM : Director, Set and Costume Designer, Drama, Iran, 2012

SHORT FICTION FILMS :
• THE OLD MAN AND THE RAIL : Director, Writer and Producer, Drama, 35 mm, Iran, 2006
• THE VICTIM : Director, Writer and Producer, Drama, 35 mm, Iran, 2003
• IN THE HEART OF SILENCE : Director, Writer and Producer, Drama, Iran, 2002
• NO TITLE : Director, Writer and Producer, Experimental, 35 mm, Iran, 2000
• POINT OF VIEW : Director, Writer and Producer, Experimental, 35 mm, Iran, 1999

FILM CRITIQUE :

“ A Light in the Fog ” “ Cheraghi dar meh ” By Russell Edwards :
After the successful screening of his first feature in New Currents section in Pusan Film Festival in Korea, critics of the two journals Variety and Hollywood Reporter acclaimed the film greatly. On 7 October 2008, Russell Edwards the critic of Variety described the film in this way:
“A Light in the Fog“ is a singularly assured feature film bow that is as understated as the best of Iranian cinema. With this flawlessly designed and exquisitely photographed work, shorts filmmaker Panahbarkhoda Rezaee has created a genuine masterpiece. In terms of plot, Panahbarkhoda Rezaee's script is absolutely minimalist. Helming is as precise as the Islamic call for prayer, and devoutly humanistic in execution.Every moment is beautifully composed, and the transitions from shot to shot are methodically linked, demonstrating Rezaee's humble but superb command of cinema. Complementing these images is the fastidious audio track. Soundscape gently embellishes visuals with a myriad of details.

FILM CRITIQUE :
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, By Elizabeth Kerr :
The critic of Hollywood Reporter wrote on 8 October 2008,we read : The debut feature by shorts filmmaker Panahbarkhoda Rezaee, ”A Light in the Fog“, is a nearly perfect example of purely visual filmmaking that won't be to everyone's tastes.

FILM CRITIQUE :
In the report of the cinema critics of Copenhagen Film Festival on 22 April 2009, we read: Iranian film has perfected personal minimalism, and Panahbarkhoda Rezaee masters this art as well as anyone. His background in short films serves him well in this poetic and beautiful film. The story couldn't be more simple and the outcome no more magnificent. Rezaee's discreet influence can be felt in every scene, as he displays a sensual awareness that is expressed in both the sounds and the images. The film has been shot in long takes as if Rezaee doesn't want to interrupt a scene with editing so that it can fully unfold, and it's this balance between minimalist perfection and intimate grandiosity that lends ”A Light in the Fog“ its power. Rezaee is not on his way to becoming one of Iran's great directors. He's there already.
FILM CRITIQUE :
In the report of the cinema critics of Edinburgh Film Festival in June 2009, we read :
THE NEW IRANIAN SOKUROV

An hypnotically beautiful portrait of a widow and her ailing father, who live alone on a misty hillside and scrape a living by mending oil lamps and making charcoal. The film's elegant compositions and quietly powerful performances slowly envelop us in the widow's simple, poignant world.
In its meditative rhythm, painterly long-take shooting, and preference for atmospheric compositions over narrative drive, Rezaee's exquisite debut recalls such masterpieces as Sohrab Shahid Saless' Still Life and Sokurov's Mother and Son. An austere and mesmerising triumph. Like the former, it explores the lives of people who live in a thin peripheral economy, wrapped up hermetically in their private dedication to repetitive labour. Like the latter, Rezaee sets a small, intensely personal story of filial devotion within the framework of a vast and mysterious landscape, whose every nuance seems to gloss the human drama it conceals. The film builds a stark dichotomy between indoors and outdoors. Ali Mohammad Ghasemi's masterful landscape shooting makes gorgeous use of cloud, fog, and half-seen hillsides, to develop a sense of moody, inscrutable vastness. By contrast, the exquisitely composed indoor scenes evince a palpably humane intimacy, using strong chiaroscuro to display widow and father, warmly lit, amongst the deep shadows of their rustic home. They mend lamps, working wordlessly, with the quiet patience of those driven by hard necessity. Through this labour, and in their mutual care, the pair find a quiet rapture. In this way, their humble lives form an island of warmth in the cold immensity beyond - they are " A Lights in the Fog ". Rezaee punctuates his highly atmospheric, meditative scenario with moments of piercing beauty and rich symbolism. One such moment is the widow and father's visit to a mosque. Shafts of golden sunlight percolate horizontally through the darkened room, offering a rare dose of strikingly perspectival imaging in a film that's dominated by mainly two-dimensional compositions (the pervasive fog dampens the sense of perceived depth in many scenes). The lighting in the mosque scene thus offers a succinct metaphor for the characters' spiritual experience during their visit. This is efficient, powerfully elegant filmmaking. This utterly assured use of formal qualities in lighting and image composition to achieve intensely poetic goals marks Rezaee out as a major new filmmaking talent.

FILM CRITIQUE :
Pusan Film Festival, A Window on Asian Cinema, 2011
By Roman Gutek :
Panahbarkhoda Rezaee is part of the Iranian minimalist movement. His films take place in the raw snowy landscape of his childhood, in small communities on the outskirts of civilization. The leading characters of Daughter... Father... Daughter are sisters who live with their father in picturesque badlands, which Rezaee carefully depicts in every shot in detail as if this were not a film but a photoplasticon filled with his artistic images. The women hunt for birds, one of them is immobilized by illness, the old man sells fuel to locals, with a truck driver's visits providing the sole entertainment. The family story develops slowly, marked by menial repetitive chores, the inescapable passage of hours, days, and weeks, with budding emotions between one of the sisters and the truck driver observed from afar. The film makes a tremendous visual impact that provokes interpretations reaching far beyond the spare and subtle plot.

"Daughter… Father… Daughter" is set in a stark and wintry western Iran. We follow the lonely existence of three sisters and their father in a hinterland so remote that it might as well be the edge of the world. The narrative is built on fragmentary imagery: the women hunt for birds, the father sells fuel to other locals, evenings are spent watching TV, and occasional visits from a truck driver relieve their isolation. The film lives by its own measured rhythm, in which the routine of days, though seemingly monotonous and slow, nevertheless hums with an intangible magic. Iranian cinema has accustomed us to young heroes, symbolism, and political generalizations. This film is different - unusual, contemplative. Rezaee’s meticulous attention to image endows the film with exceptional visual qualities, in perfect balance with its narrative intentions and tone. For me, it was one of the major revelations of the past year.