The Filmmaker
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Ramin Bahrani
GOODBYE SOLO Writer/Director/Producer
What keeps him motivated as an independent filmmaker:
Curiosity. A desire to create a new set of values, culture, and images as the current ones seem old, wasted, and often disturb me.
His three favorite films:
These are three films that I watched in the last few months and I loved:
The Enigma of Kasper Hauser
The Searchers
The Last Picture Show
His advice for aspiring filmmakers:
Read a lot, and work as many odd jobs outside of the film industry as possible.
His most inspirational food for making independent film:
I don't know if inspiration exists but it always finds me working.
Bio
Internationally acclaimed for his first two features, Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, Bahrani's films have won countless awards after premiering in festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Sundance, Toronto and Berlin, and appeared on numerous top ten lists. Bahrani was the recipient of the 2008 Independent Spirit Award's Someone To Watch prize, a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been the subject of several international retrospectives including the MoMA and Harvard University.
He also wrote and directed the short subject Plastic Bag (narrated by Werner Herzog), which premiered as the opening night film in Venice 2009 where Bahrani also served on the Jury. GOODBYE SOLO is his first film set and shot in his hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The film premiered in 2008 and immediately won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
