Babek Ahmadpour

Koker, Iran

Babak Ahamadpour, born in 1979 (or 1358 in the Persian calender) in the village of Koker in Rudbar County, Gilan Province of Iran, is an Iranian boy who is very well known in Iranian cinema and cinephile circles as the main protagonist Ahmed Ahmadpour in Where Is The Friend’s directed by Abbas Kiarostami, which is widely considered one of the greatest films of Iranian and global cinema, alongside his brother named similarly Ahmad Ahamdpour who plays the character’s best friend Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh. He grew up with almost no exposure to media, and later recalled, “we had never seen television or a camera, and did not even know what film was”. In late-1986, Kiarostami had been taking a trip to the village of Koker and had selected him and his brother as the two leads for his film. They had no prior acting experience before the film and the film would be their only lead roles. Babak later said they simply recited Kiarostami’s lines without knowing they would become a film. He described the whole process of making the film deeply surreal. Part of what makes the film so loved is how natural the performances are. He and his brother make brief background appearances in the final film of Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy titled Through The Olive Trees. They were interviewed by Houman Baba-Nouruzi in the 2018 documentary Tree Of Life.