Maryam Zaree

Maryam Zaree is an actress, author and filmmaker. She was born in 1983 in the political prison Evin in Tehran. At the age of two, her mother fled with her to Frankfurt/M, where she spent her childhood and youth. Maryam Zaree studied acting at the Potsdam-Babelsberg Film University. She has appeared in many cinema and television films, including Christian Petzold's Transit and Undine, Nora Fingscheidt's Systemsprenger and the series Doppelhaushälfte and Legal Affairs. She won the Grimme Prize in 2018 for her acting performance in the award-winning series 4 Blocks. As an author, she writes for theater, film and television. Her play Kluge Gefühle won the Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2017 and the Schiller Memorial Prize. In 2019, she was invited to the Writers Residency at the Royal Court Theater in London. Her first feature film, the documentary Born In Evin, premiered at the 2019 Berlinale and was screened in over 40 countries. In addition to the Berlinale's Kompass-Perspektive Award, it also won the Lola, the German Film Award for Best Documentary Film 2020. Maryam Zaree also worked for the Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund and for various juries. Together with Carolin Emcke and Lena Gorelik, she developed the reading tour Ist das ein Mensch, an evening for rememberence, with texts by Shoah survivors. In 2024 she was a fellow at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles and her essay Träumen was published in the volume Trotzdem Sprechen by Ullstein Verlag. In the 24/25 season, Maryam Zaree is artistically involved in the productionCiao