Deceased: Aziz Rafiei (1923-2007)

The old cinematographer of Iran passed a cinematography course at al-Ahram Studio in Egypt in 1950s. Back in Iran, he founded Karevan Film Studio along with his two brothers and started editing and shooting films. One of his famous works was The Sun Shines Bright (Sardar-Saker, 1954). When he became famous, Rafiei experienced other professions. For example, two years later, he worked as screenplay writer, director, producer, and editor of Happy Naked. His film was relatively welcomed in his time, because it was a social film and characterization was believable. Afterwards, Rafiei made a lot of films, but none of them were as successful as the first one. He also made a number of films with an eye to the box office return, but they turned out to be failures. His other film, Tears of an Orphan (1963), which was a return to his favorite social themes also failed at the box office. Performance of his young son, Nader Rafiei, who is currently managing one of the Persian language satellite networks, was great. After that failure, Rafiei committed suicide, but was saved. He then gave up cinema and after comeback, only worked as cinematographer and editor. Aziz Rafiei made The Brave Ones Die Standing (1981) in early years after victory of the Islamic Revolution. The film was not publicly screened and he left the country two years later.