Ali Limonadi (

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

: علی لیمونادی) is an Iranian-born American film and television director, television producer, and journalist. He was the founder of IRTV (acronym for "Iranian television";

:تلویزیون ایرانیان) in Los Angeles, the first television representation of the Iranian diaspora in the United States.

Early life and career

Ali Limonadi was born in

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

. After high school he moved to Germany. From 1962 until 1968, he studied film directing and cinematography at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the second largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research uni ...

(German: Universität der Künste Berlin). "Das Abonnement" is one of his films which was screened in 1967 on that time. In 1979, months after the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...

ended, Limonadi moved to the United States. He initially planned to stay for one year. In an interview Limonadi said: "At that time, we thought we would return to Iran after six months. We thought the situation would settle and that people could resume their lives back home. Some of us did not even fully unpack our bags."

Post-1979 career

On March 15, 1981, Limonadi launched the first Iranian television station outside Iran named, IRTV (acronym for "Iranian television") shown on television channel

KSCI KSCI (channel 18) is a television station licensed to Long Beach, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area. Owned by WRNN-TV Associates, the station airs programming from home shopping network Shop LC. KSCI's studios are locate ...

. He had his own television broadcasting studio based in

Studio City Studio City is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States, in the southeast San Fernando Valley, just west of the Cahuenga Pass. It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in 19 ...

, Los Angeles, and he would periodically rent it out. He produced the television series, ''Iranian''. Bootleg copies of his show ''Iranian'' were smuggled into Iran (via Europe) in the 1980s. In 2007, Limonadi was getting thousands of virus-filled emails which he attributed to "Iranian government agents". Ali Limonadi regularly appears on U.S.–based Iranian media such as ''Voice of America's Persian Television''.

Films

* ''Der Deutsche'', 1966 * ''Das Abonnement'', 1967

Book

- ''One hundred years of struggle towards democracy in Iran'' (Ali Limonadi's interviews with politicians); Edited by Qasem Beykzadeh. Iranian Archive and Research Foundation, Los Angeles, 2013. (in Persian)

References

External links

Ali Limonadi official website

(in German)
Ali Limonadi's interview with Shapour Bakhtiar, former prime minister of Iran
(in Persian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Limonadi, Ali Iranian journalists Living people Iranian film directors Year of birth missing (living people) Iranian emigrants to the United States Television producers from California