Babak Najafi Karami (, born 14 September 1975) is an Iranian-Swedish

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

, and

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...

. He is known for directing the 2016 film ''

London Has Fallen ''London Has Fallen'' is a 2016 political action thriller film directed by Babak Najafi and written by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Chad St. John, and Christian Gudegast. It is the second installment in the ''Has Fallen'' film s ...

''.

Early years

Najafi was born in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, and came to

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

as a refugee at the age of 11, when his family fled from the

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Gulf War, was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, unti ...

. Two of his brothers remained in Tehran, and it took 11 years before they met again. The family settled in Uppsala, where he spent his childhood. Between 1998 and 2002, he studied documentary directing at the

Dramatiska Institutet The Swedish Institute of Dramatic Art (, DI), also called the University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre was a Swedish university college in Stockholm that provided education programs about activities surrounding film, radio, te ...

Career

After graduation he wrote and directed a number of acclaimed short films, including the short film comedy ''Elixir'' (2004), which he was awarded the

Bo Widerberg Bo Gunnar Widerberg (; 8 June 1930 – 1 May 1997) was a Sweden, Swedish film director, screenwriter, writer, film editing, editor and actor. Biography Early life Widerberg was born in Malmö, Malmöhus County, Sweden. Career Bo Widerberg began ...

scholarship. In 2010, he made his

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many filmmakers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

with the film '' Sebbe'', which won a

Guldbagge Award for Best Film The Guldbagge for Best Film is a Swedish film award presented annually by the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) as part of the Guldbagge Awards (Swedish: "Guldbaggen") to the best Swedish motion picture of the year. Winners and nominees Each Guldb ...

, and earned him a nomination as best director at the 46th Guldbagge Awards. At the

60th Berlin International Film Festival The 60th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 11 to 21 February 2010, with Werner Herzog as president of the jury. The opening film of the festival was Chinese director Wang Quan'an's romantic drama '' Apart Together'', in com ...

, the film was competing in the Generation 14Plus category, for which Najafi won the award for Best First Feature. In 2012, he directed '' Easy Money II: Hard to Kill'', the sequel to the 2010 film '' Easy Money''. Najafi made his English-language film debut with ''

'' (2016), the sequel to the 2013 film ''

Olympus Has Fallen ''Olympus Has Fallen'' is a 2013 American political action thriller film directed and co-produced by Antoine Fuqua from a screenplay written by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, and is the first installment in the ''Has Fallen'' fil ...

''. The film was released to mostly negative reviews, but earned 205.8 million against a 60 million budget.

Filmography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Najafi, Babak 1975 births Living people Iranian screenwriters Iranian film directors Iranian cinematographers 21st-century Swedish screenwriters Swedish film directors Swedish cinematographers Swedish people of Iranian descent English-language film directors Place of birth missing (living people) Dramatiska Institutet alumni Swedish male screenwriters Iranian refugees Iranian emigrants to Sweden