NILOUFAR TAGHIZADEH

director of the film “Nila’s Dream In the Garden of Eden”

Niloufar Taghizadeh was born and raised in Iran, came to Germany in 1996 and studied at the Athanor Academy for Performing Arts, Theater and Film Directing. She wrote her first feature film screenplay "Like the Rain" in 2005 for Flying Moon-Filmproduktion, funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. In 2006, she returned to Iran and worked as a screenwriter, among others for the Iranian director and screenwriter Kambozia Partovi. At the same time, she began her journalistic work as a producer alongside Middle East correspondent Ulrich Tilgner in ZDF's Tehran studio. Between 2008 and 2012, she was the only woman working for the ZDF studio in Tehran alongside several correspondents and was responsible for many ideas, productions and shoots in Iran. At the same time, she also took part in international cinema and TV projects as a production manager and author. She returned to Europe in 2012 and continued her work in Vienna until 2016. In 2016/17 she started her freelance collaboration with film producer and director Cordula Kabliz-Post and her company Avantimedia-Fiction. First as production manager for ARTE's popular documentary series ''Through the Night with...'' and later as writer and director, she accompanied several episodes commissioned by ARTE. In 2017, she directed "Through the night with Navid Kermani and Martina Gedeck in Naples". In 2018/19, she wrote a screenplay for the documentary "Iran bittersweet - Journey through a land of contradictions" on behalf of ZDF to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. This was co-directed by Middle East correspondent Jörg Brase and Niloufar Taghizadeh. In 2019, she founded Windcatcher Productions based in Heidelberg with the aim of producing film projects by freelance authors as well as her own films.