5 View gallery <\/p>\n
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Golshifteh Farahani. ‘Every immigrant leaves a large part of themselves behind’ <\/p>\n
(Photo: Joel C Ryan\/Invision\/AP)<\/p>\n
Since that clash with Iran’s authorities, Farahani has focused on building her career abroad. It gained momentum with roles in European and American films. Despite her success, she has never forgotten where she came from, nor can she go back. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery immigrant leaves a large part of themselves behind, whether it\u2019s Iran or Somalia,\u201d says the 43-year-old actress in an interview with Ynet during the Cannes Film Festival. \u201cIt\u2019s a kind of mourning you live with your entire life. A disability you carry forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
This \u201cdisability,\u201d as she calls the humiliation she experienced following her country\u2019s rejection, has not stopped Farahani from forging an impressive and varied path. She has worked with directors such as Jim Jarmusch, Jon Stewart, the Russo brothers and Louis Garrel (with whom she also had a romantic relationship), and acted alongside Christian Bale, Adam Driver, Antonio Banderas, Marion Cotillard, Sienna Miller, Chris Hemsworth, and Johnny Depp in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. <\/p>\n
In recent years, she also starred in two Israeli productions by director Eran Riklis: the 2017 spy thriller ‘Shelter’, and the 2024 drama ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’.<\/p>\n
Acting in Israeli films is like saying \u2018F— You\u2019 to the Iranian regime
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not \u2018F— you\u2019 to the regime. I\u2019m really not interested in them. It\u2019s simply about being a person with self-respect and saying: we are artists, and we transcend borders. That\u2019s what artists do; they are ahead of their time. <\/p>\n
The world is becoming increasingly polarized, and politics is tearing it apart, but through art, we reconnect it. For me, an artist is beyond nationality, beyond gender, beyond religion. I don\u2019t see people as male or female, Israeli or not; it doesn\u2019t matter. Art is inclusive. Politics divides. And here we are, meeting in Cannes, while the world is tearing itself apart.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n 5 View gallery <\/p>\n From ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’. “An artist is beyond nationality” <\/p>\n (Photo: PR)<\/p>\n The meeting in Cannes took place ahead of the premiere of Alpha, directed by controversial French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, best known for Titane, which won the Palme d\u2019Or in 2021. <\/p>\n Like her earlier films – the violent thriller about a female serial killer or ‘Raw’, a coming-of-age drama about a girl with a hunger for human flesh – Alpha also centers on a young woman dealing with intergenerational trauma amid a mysterious pandemic that turns human tissue into stone.<\/p>\n Farahani plays Alpha\u2019s single mother, a hospital doctor living in the shadow of loss after her drug-addicted brother (played by Tahar Rahim) contracts the virus from a counterfeit syringe, and she is unable to move on with her life. <\/p>\n When Alpha (portrayed by M\u00e9lissa Boros) comes home one day with a new tattoo, her mother\u2019s anxiety erupts, along with painful memories. All the while, society is consumed by suspicion toward the infected, a theme that echoes the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.<\/p>\n \u201cMy character is full of fear”, Farahani says of the mother figure in the film, which was also screened at the recent Haifa Film Festival. “She is stuck in trauma and mourning she can\u2019t let go. We see how she passes it on to her daughter. At some point, it\u2019s the daughter who saves her. She doesn\u2019t want to live like that and demands that her mother release the memory. <\/p>\n “The most extraordinary thing about this film is that despite all the ugly, difficult things that happen, it\u2019s full of light, of human moments, of love, of empathy without judgment. No one is judged on who or what they are. There\u2019s so much tenderness and emotion.”<\/p>\n Alpha – Trailer<\/p>\n (Courtesy of NEON)<\/p>\n Balancing that tenderness with the film\u2019s disturbing images, which include syringes and fossilized human bodies, was surely not easy. Farahani admits she had never seen any of Julia Ducournau\u2019s films before being cast in Alpha, a surprising disclosure, given Ducournau\u2019s notoriety for extreme graphic body horror, like the cannibal family featured in ‘Raw’ or the young woman who becomes pregnant after sex with a car and embarks on a killing spree in ‘Titane’. It was her agents, Farahani says, who insisted she read the script.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always scattered, I receive a lot of scripts and don\u2019t get around to reading them,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut when they told me the production was ready to move on without me, I finally read it, and it touched me to the core. I was genuinely moved, and I wrote to Julia saying how proud and excited I was that she chose me for this role.\u201d Working with Ducournau, known for her dominant and intense directorial style, proved challenging but rewarding, she adds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5 View gallery <\/p>\n Julia Ducournau <\/p>\n (Photo: AP)<\/p>\n \u201cWith Julia, there isn\u2019t a lot of room for questions. What she says, that\u2019s the final word,\u201d says Farahani. \u201cSometimes she doesn\u2019t have the patience or time to explain. She\u2019s so deep inside her world as a director that she just tells you: that’s what it is, and we\u2019re going to get there. <\/p>\n “Actors are used to asking questions, but pretty quickly you understand that what she wants is what’s right. So you stop asking questions. Even if you don\u2019t understand, you give her exactly what she\u2019s asking for, and that\u2019s the right thing to do.”<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, the biggest lesson was to learn how to give in. I just had to show up, no questions asked. When you watch the film, you understand exactly why. I wish I had known that earlier; it would have saved me some adjustment time. But when you have a director who\u2019s thinking ahead, it gives you confidence. She plans several steps forward. You don\u2019t need to worry about anything. She knows everything, like the Bible, from A to Z.”<\/p>\n At the same time, Farahani found herself mentoring her co-star M\u00e9lissa Boros, a 19-year-old newcomer who plays 13-year-old Alpha. Boros brought raw authenticity to the role but needed guidance during the shoot. <\/p>\n \u201cI always say, the moments when you need to be the most careful and attentive are when you\u2019re working with inexperienced actors, because they\u2019re the best,\u201d says Farahani. \u201cThey\u2019re like children, like non-actors. They bring us into the real world. For me, she\u2019s a star, and the world will soon discover her. She\u2019s so determined and hard-working that sometimes we had to slow her down. Working with her was one of the most amazing experiences we had. It was a privilege.”<\/p>\n Boros, for her part, says she believes she was cast because of her personality, which aligned with Alpha\u2019s character. \u201cI think Julia chose me because she wanted someone with Alpha\u2019s spirit,\u201d she says. \u201cThey chose me because I\u2019m very determined. The downside is that it can be annoying, and I can definitely be annoying. The challenge wasn\u2019t about personality, but about age. I had to learn to walk, speak, and behave like a 13-year-old. But in terms of character, it\u2019s very much me. I\u2019m stubborn and determined.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\u05de\u05ea\u05d5\u05da](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Syiv9SVfZl_0_0_1512_1080_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"From")
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\n\u201cThe irony is that I was much more connected to the drama. The body horror was secondary for me. A body turning to stone, that was easy. When I watched the film, I realized that emotion is what truly matters. Even in scenes that seem graphic, it\u2019s not about the physical, but about the feeling that exists between a brother and sister. It\u2019s not about the fantasy world Julia Ducournau created.”<\/p>\n![\"\u05d6'\u05d5\u05dc\u05d9\u05d4](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/By11lUByjVt_0_0_1620_1080_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Julia")
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