Azita Damandan

Azita Damandan started her journey as a writer with writing short stories (which been published in one of the two major daily newspapers in IRAN). After being offered to publish her first novel by the same paper, She stopped writing it as she suddenly discovered the world of image in cinema. Azita started making short films without any academic training (self-trained). All of her short films won national awards and then later acknowledged internationally. Meanwhile she worked as first director assistant in films and TV series accompanying many creative well known directors including Asghar Farhadi - Oscar winner Iranian director. Waiting for her feature film screenplay approval and to search for a producer in Iran she ended up working as a journalist for 7 years (including writing and chief editing a magazine for Iran Red Crescent) followed by another period of filmmaking for big organizations like Ministry of Health and UNICEF before leaving Iran. Winning her last award in Iran as the best director for another of her short films led to a documentary about her in Italian TV by Carlo Damasco. In Australia she had to start from scratch. Making three short films (Lullaby-winner in Nurses short film festival 2009, Silence; 2013- official selected and winner of awards internationally and "Untold; 2017") she tried to find her ground. While searching for her network in a foreign land she kept her passion alive with re writing her big project-"The writer's last story" working on it since 2003, shooting documentaries and creating stories.