Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian born French film director. She is also a renowned cartoonist, novelist, graphic novelist. Born on 22 November 1969, in Iran, she grew up in a middle-class family who had faced a lot of political conflicts because of Iranian Revolution. This conflict made her uncle go to prison, but she found her paternal uncles as a hero in her life. She tried to mold her life in the ideologies of her paternal uncle since her young days. But her parents got worried because there were strict codes implemented on women in Iran. So, they sent her abroad to study and in 1983 she arrived in Vienna.

Here she contacted various parties, and came across a veteran man of the Iran-Iraq war named Reza, and fell in love and got married to him when she was just 21. Later, she divorces him within a year and moved to France. Marjane made her debut in animation films with an adaptation of her own novel named Persepolis. The film made a debut in Cannes Film Festival and won a special jury prize. This French version of the animated movie was then translated in English and won critics’ choice award at many film festivals and even was nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in January 2008. In the year 2014, she made her debut as a director. She directed a black comedy horror film titled ‘The Voices’. The film had a limited release and had even video releases too. It was appreciated by critics too. Satrapi has gained fame worldwide for her critically acclaimed autobiographical graphics that released in 2000-03.