Cinetic Media Signs ‘Fremont’ Filmmaker Babak Jalali

Matt Grobar
·2 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Cinetic Media has signed award-winning Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali (Fremont, Land) for management across all media.

Most recently, Jalali co-wrote and directed the indie drama Fremont, released by Music Box Films last August. Securing a nomination for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards, following a Jury Prize win in Deauville and one for Directing at Karlovy Vary, the film centers on mid-20s Afghan refugee Donya (Anaita Wali Zada), whose complicated feelings about her prior work as a translator for the U.S. military have left her troubled and unable to sleep. Drifting through her uninspired routine in Fremont, California, which comprises her work at a fortune cookie factory, she struggles to connect with her unfamiliar surroundings. When Donya is promoted to writing fortunes at her job, she sends a message out to the world, unsure where it will lead.

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Gregg Turkington and Jeremy Allen White also star in the pic, which world premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Born in Iran and raised in London, Jalali was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his short Heydar, An Afghan in Tehran, before going on to develop his first feature, Frontier Blues, through the Cannes Film Festival Cinefondation Residence. Following that drama, telling interwined stories set at the Iran-Turkmenistan border, he returned with musical dramedy Radio Dreams, which won the prestigious Hivos Tiger Award in its premiere at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam. Jalali’s third feature, Land, a modern Western set on a Native American reservation, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018.

Other notable filmmaker clients of Cinetic Media include Richard Linklater, David Gordon Green, Todd Haynes, Killer Films, World of Wonder, Lana Wilson, Margaret Brown, Yance Ford, Petra Costa, Matthew Heineman and Peter Nicks, to name a few.

Jalali will continue to be represented by CAA and The Agency (London), Ltd.

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