Director, producer, dramatic advisor – Golden Girls Filmproduktion
Born in 1972 in Iran, Arash T. Riahi moved to Austria as the child of political refugees in 1982. Studying Film and the Arts at the University of Vienna, he then worked as a freelancer in the youth and art department of Austrian TV. In 1997, he founded the film and media production company Golden Girls Filmproduktion (www.goldengirls.at). His body of work as a director & producer, which has won more than 100 international awards, comprises various short and experimental films (Mississippi; That Has Been Bothering Me The Whole Time), commercials, music videos, and documentaries, including The Souvenirs of Mr. X, Exile Family Movie or the cross-media project Everyday Rebellion that he made with his brother Arman. His first fiction film For a Moment Freedom was Austria’s candidate for the Academy Awards in 2010. Since 2010, he is also working as a dramatic advisor for the Creative Europe script-development programmess SOURCES 2, Nipkow and Berlinale Talents. He teaches at the Vienna film school and the filmacademy, and has held lectures at the Scottish Documentary Institute, Goethe Institute Dublin, ZKM Karlsruhe, etc. Resent workes include the documentary Born in Evin, he co-produced with Tondowski Film and which was awarded the Compass Perspektive award at the Berlinale 2019 as well as Solo a co-production with Artcam & Petit a Petit which premiered at the Cannes Filmfestival 2019.
Golden Girls Filmproduction
Golden Girls Film is an award winning creative collective of writer/directors and producers. The fiction & documentary films made by the collective are focusing on timeless social and political issues and have won more than 100 international awards. The creative team around Arash & Arman T. Riahi, Karin C. Berger and Raphael Barth is the core of the company, combining artistic and technical skills developed through 20 years of experience.
Their recent co-production with Tondowski Film Born in Evin (Maryam Zaree) won in 2019 the Berlinale Perspektive Compass Award and their French/Chech/Argentinian co-production SOLO (Artemio Benki) is premiering at the Cannes filmfestival.
In 2017 their co-production with Zischlermann The Eremits (Ronny Trocker), which premiered at the Orizzonti Section of the Venice Filmfestival, was one of five films nomminated as discovery of the year at the European Filmawards. In 2017 they also released the multiaward winning feature The Migrumpies, which became Austrias 3rd most successfull boxoffice hit of the year. Their music documentary KINDERS, (Riahi Brothers) got the Special Jury award at the Sarajevo Filmfestival 2017, their fiction film ONE OF US (Stephan Richter) won the Max Ophüls award and premiered 2015 in San Sebastian.
Their pioneering cross-media documentary Everyday Rebellion (Riahi Brothers) was Austria’s most successful film at festivals in 2014 with more than 50 invitations. Furthermore the fictional debut of Arash T. Riahi (Wega Film & Les Films du Losange) For a moment freedom was Austria’s Academy Award entry 2010.