Ali Soozandeh

Ali Soozandeh (born 22 March 1970), is an Iranian-born German animator and filmmaker. He is best known for the 2017 German-Austrian animated film Tehran Taboo, which explores sexual and gender double standards in Iran.

Early life and education Soozandeh was born in Shiraz, Iran. He studied art in Tehran before emigrating to Germany in 1995. He is the only member of his family who lives outside Iran.

Career In Germany, Soozandeh worked as an animation specialist in film and television, directing music videos and other short films. and founded his own company, Intaktfilm. He also His work in animation included the documentary The Green Wave (2010), which won the Grimme Preis Award for Best Documentary. He also produced the animated sequences of Camp 14: Total Control Zone, a 2012 German/South Korean documentary by Marc Wiese about the Kaechon internment camp, known as "Camp 14," in North Korea. The film had its premiere at the Critics' Week sidebar of the 70th Cannes Film Festival in May 2017. and opened to generally favorable reviews in the U.S. in February 2018. The film has attracted attention for its subject matter and its visual style, which The Hollywood Reporter has described as "a unique combination of rotoscoping and motion capture with hand-drawn and computer animation". He has said that his aim in making the film was to promote social change in his native country.

Since the film could not possibly be made in Tehran, Soozandeh used the rotoscoping technique, which combines animation with live action, thereby allowing Iranian visual elements to be superimposed on each scene.