Ebrahim Hatamikia

Ebrahim Hatamikia was born in 1961 in Tehran into a 
traditional family of six sisters and one brother.
In 1979 following the Islamic Revolution, he participates
in art courses and gets some knowledge about photography
and film development. He also makes a stop-motion 
animation with his 8mm camera. Hatamikia, then goes to 
the Islamic center of amateur Film Making and study 
History of Cinema, Script writing and directory.
During this period he makes another animation entitled
Promised(Mo`ood) and a short film called Stupides (Koordelan) .
Following the Iran-Irak was he joins the Guardians of the 
Revolution`s audio - visual department and goes on mission 
to the front line and makes some documentary films.
During this time he continues to watch movies, which 
some of them like Brother sun, Sister moon (Franco zeffirelli)
and Catch 22 (Robert Altman) have great in fluence on him. 
In 1984, Hatamikia makes The Tomb (Torbat) an 8mm film, 
based on his own experiences at the front line. A year later 
he makes another short, The Path(Serat), which helps him 
to develop a style of his own and for this matter, it has a 
special place in his career.
In 1985, he makes The Red collar (Toghe-Sorkh) . 
In this film he experiences a new domain and tries to tell 
a war story in an allegorical way.
He wrote and directed his first script, Identity (Hoviyat) 
in 1987. Two years later he made The Scout (Didehban) 
which is edited by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. [The Scout won 
the special award at the Fajr Film Festival.]
In the late soth , Hatamikia went on to study cinema at 
the university. His second film, The Immigrant (Mohajer) 
won the best film prize at the 9th F.F.F and did very well 
at the box office. He wrote his fourth film , Joining of the 
Good (Vasl-e Nikan) during Tehran bombardment by the 
Irakians. But after its public Screening the critics claimed 
that it clearly shows that he doesn`t know the city life and 
all he`s capable of , is making films in the battle filds. 
Hatamikia denied their claims and with From Karkheh to 
Rhine (Az karkheh Ta Rhine) which is shot entirely in 
Germany, to some extent, tries to respond to these assetions.
From Karkheh to Rhine [Karkheh is a river in south of 
Iran which was the site of some bloody battles during 
the war] did extremly well at the box office and is a 
turning point in his career.
In 1994, during the war, he went to Bosnia, for having 
a first hand account of the situation. He then wrote Green Ashes 
(Khakestar-e Sabz) after his experiences in Bosnia.
Despite critic`s enthusiasm, the allegorical larguage of the film 
became an obstacle and it failed at the box office. But Hatamikia
him self loves Green Ashes and believes that til then he 
has never felt so master of the medium.
He stopped making films for a year and preferred to consider 
the reasons behind his failure to communicate with wider 
auoliences.