Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian
Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian (; born 12 May 1981) is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. He's best known for his films "Standing in the Dust" (2016), "Midday Adventures" (2017), "Lottery" (2018), "Walnut Tree" (2020) and "Mortal Wound" (2021). He won both Best Film and Audience Choice of Best Film for making the film "Midday Adventures", making it one of only five films in The history of cinema of Iran to win the latter. (the other four are "The Glass Agency, Low Heights, In Amethyst Color" and "Crazy Rook") Career. He graduated from Soore University with a Bachelor  of Film and Television in Directing and a master's degree in production from the Iran Broadcasting University. Mahdavian received critical acclaim for making the film Standing in the Dust, he won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Film and received an nomination for Crystal Simorgh for Best Director in 2016 at the 34th Fajr Film Festival. in 2017 he won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Film and the Crystal Simorgh for Audience Choice of Best Film for Midday Adventures. When he received this award (Crystal Simorgh for Audience Choice of Best Film), he called it the most important award of  the festival. He won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Director at the 38th Fajr Film Festival for making the film Walnut Tree. Style. One of the main tools used by Mahdavians to represent a documentary is the use of a hand-held camera in filming, which creates the illusion of more reality for the viewer. A technique that is, of course, used in many especially social films of Iranian cinema. But the visual quality and texture of the image that Mahdavian creates is not similar to the scenes on social films. In the first place, it uses the Negative to  add a nostalgic aspect to the films, which is in harmony with the story and the theme of the film. That is, the choice of whether to shoot a negative or digital film is directly related to the story. In ""Standing in the Dust"" or ""Midday Adventures"" and """", a 16mm negative camera has been used to bring the film closer to its narrative since the 1960s. Digital cameras have been rebuilt and in ""Walnut Tree"" in each period of the film, i.e. the 60s, 80s and 90s, in order to remain faithful to the visual index texture in each  decade, 16mm, 35mm and digital cameras, respectively, have been used. They have their own visual phase. In addition, the camera movements are not like other social films, it has sloppiness and pus, which again emphasizes the documentary aspect. Of course, this does not mean that the director's design is not accurate, that exactly all the elements in front of the camera are placed in such a way that they look slutty and "unplaced". In Mahdavian's works, the camera serves to document and bring the viewer closer to the date and time in which the story of  the film takes place. In a conversation about making a film about Iran and Nationalism, Mahdavian said: