When Golshifteh Farahani walks into a room, she carries with her more than fame. She carries the weight of an entire cinematic tradition, the still-burning fire of exile, and the quiet strength of a woman who has rebuilt herself in multiple countries, languages, and artistic worlds. PÖFF has welcomed its share of icons, but this year one of the brightest presences belonged to a woman in her forties — luminous, restless, and utterly alive.

Farahani remains one of world cinema’s most compelling figures — a performer shaped by exile, sharpened by experience, and sustained by an unyielding artistic hunger. In Oh, What Happy Days! she delivers a performance born from instinct rather than preparation, chaos rather than control — a rare reminder of what cinema can reveal when the actor steps aside and something deeper speaks through them.

Below is a conversation between Farahani and Milani Perera at the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival — an intimate drift across memory, identity, exile, and the unpredictable alchemy of performance.

MP: This is your first visit to Tallinn, despite many invitations over the years. How did it feel coming to the festival at last?

GF: It felt like finally arriving in a place I was meant to visit years ago. I’ve been invited many times, but filmmaking always intervened. Being here now, walking through the festival atmosphere, feels like meeting a memory I never lived — something familiar yet completely new.

MP: Your upbringing was deeply artistic — a home of painters, actors, writers, musicians. How did this constellation shape the performer you became?

GF: In my family, art was not a profession. It was a way of existing. Being an artist was the highest expression of being human. Yet acting was the one thing they tried to protect me from. They knew its sacrifices, its uncertainties, and in Iran, its dangers. I was trained as a pianist and nearly moved to Vienna. But cinema found me early — when I was fourteen — and something irreversible happened. From that point on, film became my second language.

MP: Your first major award came at 14 — a historic moment. How did that recognition echo within your family?

GF: My parents were furious while I was shooting that film. My father wasn’t speaking to me; my mother was crying, convinced I would abandon music. But the night of the award changed everything. I remember Tehran covered in snow, my father and me running across a bridge toward the Opera House. For the first time, I saw pride break through his resistance. It was as if that moment revealed a truth to both of us — that cinema had claimed me, whether we had planned it or not.

MP: There’s a long-standing debate among cinephiles: do actors choose their roles, or do roles choose them? Where do you stand?

GF: I think it’s a dialogue between the two. When you look across an actor’s career, you often see a gravitational pull — certain themes that keep returning, as if the universe is handing them back in new forms. For me, after leaving Iran, I found myself drawn toward characters in states of emancipation, transformation, defiance. Later I stepped into warrior figures — women in combat, both literal and metaphorical. Now… I feel life pushing me toward comedy, toward a lighter rebellion. Perhaps that is the current the universe is sending back to me.

MP: You’ve spoken openly about your exile. For many artists, exile becomes both a wound and a studio. What did it become for you?

GF: Exile became a limb I lost — and a limb I learned to live without. When Ridley Scott cast me, sanctions stopped the contract, and suddenly I became a political suspect. My passport was taken. Interrogations, uncertainty, fear — it lasted months. Eventually I left. And exile… Exile is an invisible scar that becomes part of your identity. You become a handicapped soul — but handicapped souls can still become champions. Eighteen years later, I feel strangely at home everywhere. Perhaps that is the final shape of exile — to belong to the world as opposed to one place.

MP: Your new film Oh, What Happy Days! brought together actors from inside Iran and actors in exile — something nearly impossible. What drew you to this project?

GF: It felt like a call I couldn’t refuse. To stand on the same screen with compatriots inside Iran — after so many years away — was a gift. I didn’t even finish the script before filming. I was discovering the story as the camera rolled. At one point, something wild erupted — a dragon; a range of emotions I didn’t anticipate: laughter, rage, chaos, release. I struck the table so hard I injured my hands. But it felt honest, instinctive, necessary — like a truth coming out of hiding.

MP: Was this experience shaped by your collaboration with director Homayoun Ghanizadeh?

GF: Absolutely. Homayoun builds spaces that disarm the actor — spaces where ego, preparation, and control fall away. He wanted presence, not performance. Because of that, I could react without thinking, feel without shaping, fall without fear. He created the platform, and the dragon walked out.

MP: As programmers, we were struck by the film’s formal disorientation — its chaotic conversations, tonal fractures, sudden shifts. Yet that dissonance becomes the point. Do you see this as a step toward comedy for you?

GF: Comedy has always existed on the edge of tragedy. Perhaps after years of playing women in battle, it is time to laugh — not in dismissal, but in defiance. Sometimes laughter is the last honest weapon. If this film is a doorway into comedic work, I’m ready.

MP: Golshifteh, thank you for this conversation — and for the rawness and clarity you bring to cinema. Tallinn already feels different with you in it.

GF: Thank you. I feel the butterflies — and now I must run to the press conference!

As she rushed toward the waiting press conference, the energy she left in the room lingered: the sense that some artists do not merely act in films — they live entire histories within them.

(c) Photo copyright: Liis Reimann 

Originally appeared in The International Cinephile Society