Golshifteh Farahani appointed President of the Jury of the 51st Deauville Festival

Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani will be the President of the next Jury of the Deauville Film Festival , the organizers announced in a press release on Monday. The ^51st edition of this annual American cinema event will be held from September 5 to 14, 2025 in Normandy. The actress, recently seen in theaters in the film Reading Lolita in Tehran by director Eran Riklis , will be welcomed with "immense pride," the organizers added.

Revealed in 1998 in Dariush Mehrjui's The Pear Tree , Golshifteh Farahani embodies the feminist activism of Iranian cinema. She learned her trade from a very young age and appeared in around twenty films in the 2000s. In 2009, the actress landed her first major role at the age of 26 in Asghar Farhadi 's About Elly . She is "an actress who always embodies, resists and exudes aplomb, dignity and strength, engaging her entire body," describes the Deauville Festival about this role.

Trailer for Reading Lolita in Tehran (2025)

Beyond her acting talent, Golshifteh Farahani is a committed woman . Her role in Ridley Scott 's Body of Lies alongside Leonardo DiCaprio , in which she appeared without a hijab, a mark of opposition to the restrictions imposed on women in Iran, forced her to go into exile in France. Furthermore, with this feature film, she became "the first Iranian actress to star in a Hollywood production since the 1979 Revolution," the organizers specify, which earned her a ban from her native country.

In France, the actress has a prolific career with a notable role in Syngué sabour – Pierre de patience by Atiq Rahimi in 2012. She plays a woman submissive to her husband in the mountains of Kabul and receives her first nomination for a César in the category of Most Promising Actress. Dariush Mehrjui also distinguished herself in the United States with Just Like A Woman , My Sweet Pepper Land (2013), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), Girls of the Sun (2018), and Extraction (2020). She conquers the hearts of spectators across the Atlantic "with her freedom and independence" .

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Before taking on the role of President of the Deauville Jury next September, the Iranian actress will be presented in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in a few days with her role in Julia Ducournau's Alpha . "Golshifteh Farahani has taken on so many causes and so many figures of audacity on screen that she has become a symbol and a standard-bearer of women's freedom, but it is body and soul that she plays her life every day with intensity," the press release concludes.