Babak Najafi Karami ( fa, بابک نجفی, born 14 September 1975) is an Iranian-Swedish film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. He is known for directing the 2016 film ''

London Has Fallen ''London Has Fallen'' is a 2016 American action thriller film directed by Babak Najafi and written by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Chad St. John and Christian Gudegast. It is the second installment in the ''Has Fallen'' film series ...

''.

Biography

Early years

Najafi was born in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, and came to Sweden as a refugee at the age of 11, when his family fled from the

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations S ...

. Two of his brothers remained in Tehran, and it took 11 years before they met again. The family settled in Uppsala, where he spent his childhood. Between 1998 and 2002, he studied documentary directing at the

Dramatiska Institutet The Swedish Institute of Dramatic Art ( sv, Dramatiska Institutet, DI), also called the University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre was a Swedish university college in Stockholm that provided education programs about activities sur ...

Career

After graduation he wrote and directed a number of acclaimed short films, including the short film comedy ''Elixir'' (2004), which he was awarded the

Bo Widerberg Bo Gunnar Widerberg (; 8 June 1930 – 1 May 1997) was a Swedish film director, writer, editor and actor. Biography Early life Widerberg was born in Malmö, Malmöhus County, Sweden. Career Widerberg was the director of films such as ''Rave ...

scholarship. In 2010, he made his

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

with the film '' Sebbe'', which won a

Guldbagge Award for Best Film The Guldbagge for Best Film is a Swedish film award presented annually by the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) as part of the Guldbagge Awards (Swedish: "Guldbaggen") to the best Swedish motion picture of the year. Winners and nominees Each Guldb ...

, and earned him a nomination as best director at the 46th Guldbagge Awards. At the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, the film was competing in the Generation 14Plus category, for which Najafi won the award for Best First Feature. In 2012, he directed '' Easy Money II: Hard to Kill'', the sequel to the 2010 film '' Easy Money''. Najafi made his English-language film debut with ''

'' (2016), the sequel to the 2013 film '' Olympus Has Fallen''. The film was released to mostly negative reviews, but earned 205.8 million against a 60 million budget.

Filmography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Najafi, Babak 1975 births Living people Iranian screenwriters Iranian film directors Iranian cinematographers Swedish screenwriters Swedish film directors Swedish cinematographers Sommar (radio program) hosts Swedish people of Iranian descent English-language film directors Place of birth missing (living people) Dramatiska Institutet alumni