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Parisa Barani is an award-winning queer Muslim Canadian Iranian film director. Born and raised in Tehran, she immigrated to Vancouver at the age of 16.

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Barani is slated to direct the upcoming features HARAM and HAJI and is in development for her feature HUMAN TERRAIN and television pilot called DUTY STATION. Her proof-of-concept short for HUMAN TERRAIN, stars Maggie Siff and Sarita Choudhury and distributed by Refinery29/Shatterbox. It debuted at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and was in competition at Geena Davis’ Bentonville Film Festival.

Barani’s other film, ABLUTION screened at festivals worldwide, including Mill Valley Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Outfest Fusion QTBIPOC and Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase.

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Barani is a participant of 2023 Netflix TV Episodic “Directors on the Rise” program with Paris Barclay.

2021-23 ViacomCBS Emerging Directors Program, the 2019-2021 Universal Directors Initiative and 2021 Creative Capital’s On Our Radar and a recipient of the 2016 and 2019 Tribeca Film Institute Sloan Grant and a grant from Neda Nobari Foundation. She has been shortlisted and semi-finalist for Sundance Screenwriters Lab, NBC Female Forward/Emerging Director program and Creative Capital Award.

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In addition to filmmaking, Barani has curated and spoken on panels at SXSW and San Francisco State University. She teaches at the Youth Cinema Project’s Latino Film Institute and programmer at Outfest LGBTQ Film Festival. She is a graduate of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women and SITI’s Theatre Intensive Training at Skidmore College, where she was mentored by the legendary Anne Bogart. She is fluent in English and Farsi.

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