Daryush Shokof

Who is Daryush Shokof?

Daryush Shokof (Persian: داریوش شکوف‎) (born Ali Reza Shokoufandeh on June 25, 1954) is an Iranian artist, film director, philosopher, writer, art director, and film producer, and singer. He was born in Tehran, Iran, but lives in Germany. Shokof left Iran in the 1970s to continue education in the United States where he studied physics and mathematics at Eastern New Mexico University and then industrial management at the University of Texas at Dallas. At the age of 22 he moved to New York City, became interested in, and began studying art and film at New York University. In 1985, Shokof moved to Germany, where he became a full-time artist and sculptor. He continued to simultaneously write film scripts and made his first feature film debut Seven Servants in Germany in 1995. Seven Servants was an impressive and daring first attempt on the big screen. Seven Servants is often mentioned as one of the most original movies ever made. Even though the fate of the movie was a most unfortunate one in which it never got released for over 13 years, it somehow paved the way for Shokof to continue making movies with his unique views of filmmaking and establishing his name as an original Auteur.