Mohammadreza Vatandoust is an Iranian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and artist. He was born on April 22, 1978 in Sari, Iran. He received his bachelor’s in cinema from the Art University of Tehran and he has master’s degrees in art research and sociology. He also has a PhD in media management from Tehran University.
He has been the winner a lot of international and national awards. In 2009 his debut feature film “When The Lemons Turned Yellow”, premiered and won the “Best First Feature Film Award” at the Montreal World Film Festival (Canada). In 2022 his second feature film “Butterflies Live Only One Day”, premiered and won the “Asian Future Best Film Award” at the Tokyo International Film Festival (Japan). Vatandoust’s films have been selected by many prestigious international film festivals such as the Shanghai International Film Festival, Sao Paulo International Film Festival, Munich International Film Festival, LA International Film Festival, Sheffield Doc Fest, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival.
He has directed several award-winning documentary and feature films such as “Thirsty” (2001), “Red mountain” (2003), “ 50000 years day” (2005)، “When the lemons turned yellow” (2009), “Nena” (2017), “Lotus” (2018), “Butterflies live only one day” (2022).
He is an university lecturer, and has had professional workshops in most of cities of Iran, and other countries, directed a Workshop in “Writing A Plot and Directing A Movie of Invisible Wounds” at the Avanca International Film Festival (portugal, 2011). He has taught creativity directing in IRIB Education Center, and cinema college in Iran from 2011. And also he has judged in a lot of festivals.