Avash News: Asghar Farhadi, the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, described Beyzaee as his “Grand Master,” noting that he passed away on his birthday.
Bahram Beyzaee — Iranian playwright, screenwriter, scholar of performance methodology, and prominent film and theatre director — died of cancer-related complications at the age of 87, on the anniversary of his birth.
In its report on the death of this distinguished figure of Iranian art and culture, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Bashou, the Little Stranger (1985), which was screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2025, received the top prize in the “Venice Classics” section — a recognition that once again solidified the film’s place in the history of Iranian and world cinema.
Farhadi, in an emotional message, referred to Beyzaee as his “Grand Master.”
Beyzaee was born on Dec. 26, 1938, in Tehran, and was raised in a family deeply engaged in poetry and literary research. Over the course of his artistic career, he directed more than ten feature films, four short films, and fourteen theatre productions, and authored over seventy books, screenplays, and plays.
He was one of the leading figures and pioneers of Iran’s New Cinema movement. Among his celebrated works screened at international festivals are Bashou, the Little Stranger, The Travelers, The Storm, and Killing Mad Dogs.
Beyzaee’s works are deeply influenced by performance methodology, as well as Indian and Iranian history, and are grounded in research into literature and Iran’s ancient languages. He revived and reinterpreted indigenous Iranian theatrical forms in many of his productions.
His first major work, Arash, written at the age of nineteen, was a response to Siavash Kasraei’s poem Arash-e Kamangir. He also conducted extensive research on the origins of One Thousand and One Nights and examined its relationship to other key works of Persian literature.
His book Play in Iran (1965) was a comprehensive study of the historical roots of traditional performance forms such as Naqqāli, Kheimeh Shab-Bazi, Ta’zieh, and Roo-Howzi.
The Hollywood Reporter also remembered Beyzaee as one of the founders of the “Iranian Avant-Garde Filmmakers Center,” the “Iranian Writers’ Association,” and the “Association of Playwrights and Composers of Dramatic Music.”
Beyzaee left Iran in 2010 and later joined Stanford University as a lecturer in Iranian Studies, where he staged several plays and held workshops on Iranian performance traditions.
He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscar Academy) and had been invited to serve on its voting board.
