The two-time Oscar winner, Iranian director and screenwriter Asghar Farhadi, will be a guest at the 39th Herceg Novi – Montenegro Film Festival. Farhadi will attend the screening of his latest film, Parallel Tales, which will take place on Sunday, August 23, at 8:30 p.m. at Forte Mare Fortress.

Farhadi will also hold a special masterclass on Tuesday, August 25, from 10 to 11 a.m., as part of the Montenegro Film Rendezvous industry programme, organized by the Film Centre of Montenegro. The masterclass will take place at Park Hall, with Vuk Perović serving as moderator.

The film Parallel Tales was produced by the French production company Memento Production in 2026 and has a runtime of 139 minutes. The film was screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Farhadi is also this year’s recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival.

Asghar Farhadi was born in 1972 in Iran. He began making films as a teenager, joining the Isfahan Young Cinema Society in 1986, where he made short films on 8mm and 16mm. He graduated in Dramatic Arts from the University of Tehran in 1998 and, several years later, earned a master’s degree in Theatre Direction, with a thesis devoted to Harold Pinter and the significance of silence and pauses in his dramatic writing.

He made his directorial debut with Dancing in the Dust (2002), and gained international recognition with About Elly (2009), for which he received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale. This was followed by A Separation (2011), which received more than seventy awards, including the Academy Award and César Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He shot The Past (2013) in France, with Bérénice Bejo winning the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance. With The Salesman (2016), he won the awards for Best Screenplay and Best Actor at Cannes, as well as his second Academy Award, while A Hero (2021) received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.