Boshra Dastournezhad

Boshra Dastournezhad Haghighi was born on April 7, 1985 in Shiraz, the daughter of Mehran Dastournezhad Haghighi and Fariba Vesali . At age 12, Dastournezhad started modeling for her aunt, Shabnam Dastournezhad Haghighi, a professional painter in Iran. Her time with her aunt exposed Dastournezhad to a new world of artistic expression. That led Ms. Dastournezhad to a career in modeling. Dastournezhad started modeling professionally in Turkey in 2009. She modeled for several local and national campaigns. In 2012, her modeling en-devours took her to the United States. While in the United States she had several jobs that helped to propel her career. In 2014 during a trip to Seattle, she was recorded reciting an original poem in her native language of Farsi. It was posted to Facebook and received over 16,000 Shares, catching the attention of Marjaneh Moghimi, a prominent Iranian-American producer. After a brief conversation, Dastournezhad, was cast as Maral in Radio Dreams, a United States-Iranian film by Iranian born film maker Babak Jalali. Writing in Variety, Critic Catherine Bray called her performance "a standout among the supporting players, sketching the financially astute daughter of the station owner with Aubrey Plaza levels of deadpan misanthropy." Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as "Presenting a nuanced, intelligent and consistently droll take on hot-button subjects of immigration, identity and cultural assimilation..." and that it "stand[s] comparison with the finest radio-themed enterprises of the current century..." Writing in Variety, critic Catherine Bray called the film a "quietly satisfying gem..." and a "deserving Tiger competition winner at Rotterdam..."