Bahram Bayzai

بهرام بیضائی Bahrām Beyzaie
Bahrām Beyzaie pensive, photographed by Fakhreddin Fakhreddini
Born	(1938-12-26) December 26, 1938 (age 78) Tehran, Iran
Occupation	Playwright, Film director, Theatre director, Screenwriter
Years active	1962–present
Spouse(s)	Mozhdeh Shamsai (m. 1992)
Children	Niloofar

Bahrām Beyzāie (also spelt Bahrām Beizai, Bahrām Beyzaie, Persian: بهرام بیضائی‎‎, born 26 December 1938 in Tehran) is a critically acclaimed Iranian film director, playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, film editor, producer, and researcher.

Bahram Beyzaie is the son of the poet Ostād Ne'mat'ollāh Beyzāie (best known by his literary pseudonym Zokā'i Beyzāie - ذکائی بیضائی). The celebrated poet Adib Ali Beyzāie, considered as one of the most profound poets of 20th-century Iran, is Bahram Beyzaie's paternal uncle. Bahram Beyzaie's paternal grandfather, Mirzā Mohammad-Rezā Ārāni (Ebn Ruh - ابن روح), and paternal great-grandfather, the mulla Mohammad-Faqih Ārāni (Ruh'ol-Amin - روح الامین), were also renowned poets.

Beyzaie is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes other pioneering directors such as Nasser Taghvai, Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Sales, and Masoud Kimiai. The filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialog, references to traditional Persian art and culture and allegorical story-telling often dealing with political and philosophical issues.

Beyzaie was interested in the arts from a very young age. In high school, Dar'ol-Fonoun, he wrote two historical plays which went on to become his preferred method of writing. He studied literature at Tehran University, but started skipping school from around the age of 17 in order to go to movies which were becoming popular in Iran at a rapid pace. This only fed his hunger to learn more about the cinema of Iran and the visual arts. At the age of 21 he did substantial research on the traditional Persian plays, Book of Kings (Shahname) and Ta'zieh and by 1961 he had already spent a great deal of time studying and researching other ancient Persian and pre-Islamic culture and literature. This in turn led him to studying Eastern theatre and traditional Iranian theatre and arts which would help him formulate a new non-western identity for Iranian theatre. He also became acquainted with Persian painting.