Biography
Taies Farzan was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1974. In 1984, her family moved to Turkey, where Farzan went to school until 1990. Her family then moved again, this time to Germany. There, she started acting already before graduating from school (1993). In 1991, she took an acting course lead by the Turkish theatre maker Nurhan Karadag in Cologne and appeared on stage from 1992 on in several productions of Cologne's Arkadaş Theater. In 1997, she visited the Manfred Riedel Schauspielschule (Manfred Riedel Acting School) in Stuttgart and was active in several theatre groups, playing in Bonn and in Cologne in the following years. In 2004, Farzan made the short film "Weiße Lügen", which won her Best International Directorial Debut at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. Almost coincidingly, Farzan gave her acting debut on the big screen in an important supporting role in Yilmaz Arslan's award-winning social drama "Fatricide - Brudermord" (DE/LU/FR 2005). Subsequently, she appeared in several short films.
The Germany-based, Iranian director Daryush Shokof, cast her in leading roles for both, his gangster comedy film "Breathful" (2006) and the political drama "Hitler's Grave" (2009). Farzan co-produced both movies. In addition to that, she also starred in several Turkish productions, among them the family drama "Içimdeki sessiz nehir" (2011) and the road movie "Pia" (2016). From 2012 through 2014, she appeared on stage at the Instanbul State Theatre, starring in the title role of "Antigone".
In Germany, Yilmaz Arslan cast her in a lead role for his coming-of-age drama "Sandstern" as a Turkish woman living in Germany, whose estranged 12-year-old son from Turkey moves in with her.