Maryam Zaree

Maryam Zaree — Biography

A familiar face in German film and television, Maryam Zaree works as an Iranian-German actress, director and writer. She made her breakthrough in Burhan Qurbani's Shahada, won the 2018 Grimme Award for playing Kalila Hamady in the series 4 Blocks, and her directing debut, Born in Evin, was named best documentary at the 2020 German Film Awards.

She was born in Evin Prison in Tehran, where both her parents were held for political dissent. At two she left for Frankfurt with her mother; her father, who had been awaiting a death sentence, was released after seven years, and she met him at ten. She trained as an actress at the Potsdam-Babelsberg Film University. Shahada (2010) brought her a best-performance prize in Monterrey and recognition at the Flanders film festival. She went on to appear in Burnout, Willkommen bei Habib, Marry Me!, Transit, Undine and Skin Deep and in episodes of Tatort, and played a dual role in Tayfun Pirselimoğlu's Turkish-French-Greek co-production I Am Not Him. She has also acted on stage in Hannover and Berlin.

She writes as well: her play Kluge Gefühle won the 2017 Heidelberg Theatre Prize. Born in Evin (2019) explores her own birth and her mother's imprisonment; it was screened in more than forty countries and won the Berlinale's Kompass-Perspektive Award.