Jean Behrad

Behrad is an actor, writer, and film director born in 1978 (Tehran, Iran). He holds a B.A. in acting from Tehran University (Tehran - Iran), a B.A. in Applied Art from CKP College (Bangalore - India), and a Diploma from InFocus film school (Vancouver - Canada). He started his career on local theatre stages and grew to act in many adopted and original productions such as Hamlet and Othello, and also led a production of Shahnameh Ferdowsi Carnival. Besides acting, he gained valuable experiences in painting, writing, and graphic design, all of which prepared him for starting a career as a director of a theatre play in Tehran and kept him engaged with a larger community of domestic and international artists. In one of these projects, he employed modern conceptual photography techniques to illustrate unique natural shapes among trees, which were shown in several group exhibition series entitled "Rozhano", held in India. Critical of the oppressive and authoritarian political system in Iran, Behrad started writing for a few periodicals such as Omid (Hope), and also authored a book entitled "The loosed minimal, Cogito of Nizami playwright, Art in philosophy". He was and still is interested in the role that art can play in supporting communities to rethink their values and grow as a group. Needless to say that this topic and Behrad's style of writing were not tolerated in Iran. In 2018, Behrad left Iran again and chose Canada as his new home. Besides working on finishing a degree in film production, he has written for a popular Persian news outlet in Vancouver (Shahrvand). He is involved in several movie projects as an actor or director.