Naji won the prize for his role in director Majid Majidi’s “The Song of Sparrows” last year.
Director Hushang Mirzaii is to produce a 25-minute documentary named “I Am Reza Naji” in Naji’s hometown of Tabriz, featuring the life and efforts of the actor in the field of cinema, the Persian service of IRNA reported on Friday.
Naji was born in Tabriz in 1942 and began his artistic career when he was twenty, playing in several short films and provincial TV programs. He is not a graduate of cinema, of course.
He has acted in several movies including Majidi’s “Baran” and “The Weeping Willow”, Mojtaba Raei’s “Birth of a Butterfly”, and Iraj Karimi’s “Kandelus Gardens”.
Filmmaker Khosro Masumi considers Naji a phenomenon of Iran’s cinema and believes that he truly lives rather than acts in the films, that is, he virtually becomes one in the same with the characters when he plays their roles.
Naji has also won prizes at two top international festivals in Australia and Syria for his role in “The Song of Sparrows”.
He received the prize for Best Performance by an Actor from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2008, which was held in Gold Coast, Australia.
Meanwhile, he also received the Best Actor award from the 16th Damascus International Film Festival.
“The Song of Sparrows” is a bittersweet parable about the struggles of a family living in a rural area outside Tehran.
Naji plays Karim who leaves his homeland and goes to Tehran to find work, and in the process, is forced to face many other difficulties.
RM/YAW
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MNA