Bio
Born on October 11, 1979 in Tehran.
Director, actor, singer, presenter, translator and acting coach in both cinema & theater, with a bachelor’s degree in theater.
During his years of activity, in addition to dealing with his main profession, which is acting and directing, a collection of his work can be seen in fields such as music, translation of plays, art management and education.
While studying acting at the university, he went on stage for the first time in 1998 at the age of nineteen. After experiencing theater, he entered television and then cinema. Now, after twenty years have of this successful profession, looking at his career, we can choose the medium of “theater” as the “main origin” of Ashkan Khatibi in the world of art.
Khatibi started his career in cinema by appearing in the movie “So Close, So far” directed by Reza Mirkarimi. his voice, along with the brilliant soundtrack of this film, became one of the most lasting descriptions of the stars of Iranian cinema. In the following years, he experienced appearing in several films, and his most difficult or perhaps the most painful experience was playing the role of Saba in the movie “Bench Cinema”. In this film, Khatibi portrays a man who suffers from hunger. preparation for this role was accompanied by a very drastic weight loss (twenty-five kilograms) in just four months. This continuous pressure due to severe malnutrition created difficult physical conditions for him for a long time, and perhaps he compensated by ignoring the injuries. Inevitably, it can be said, acceptable recovery of this weakness took years. The abandonment of the frames of his acting in a snowy mountain where he appeared half-naked in front of the camera for hours and his passion for acting had taken him to play the violin in less than four months, made him discouraged from cinema. That’s why he decided to spend some time away from the magic of the silver screen,and put himself in the atmosphere of music and theater to revive his energy.
Ashkan Khatibi entered television with the series “Hamsafar” directed by Qasim Jafari in 1999. In addition to acting in numerous serials and telefilms, he participated as a presenter in programs with a new perspective, including “A house with a new design” (2006), which had a significant impact in terms of entering the “live show” style. In this media, he left his mark as one of the cornerstones of the production of entertaining television programs such as “Make yourself laugh”. Khatibi’s last appearance on TV was as a judge and coach of the talent search section of the funny program called “Be Laughing” in two consecutive broadcasts of this program in 2016 and 2017.
Ashkan Khatibi’s first experience on the theater stage was at the age of nineteen when he participated in the show “telephone” directed by Azadeh Sohrabi. It is safe to say that from then, the most important concern of his life is theater. In addition to collaborating with a number of directors known in this profession independently, he has been a member of the “Parchin” group as the longest period of membership in drama groups in his career. For a decade, Khatibi collaborated with this group led by Mohammad Rahmanian as an actor, singer, project executive and director consultant. After separating from this group in addition to acting, he has focused his most on directing and producing plays, as well as teaching acting and putting his students on stage.
Membership in the German theater group “Marin Bad” for three years (2007-2010). The performance of the show “The Last Feather of Phoenix” directed by “Stephen Weiland” during two years in the city of Berlin. Holding acting workshops in several English and German cities.Among his theatrical activities are abroad. For many years, he has been teaching theater in two age groups, teenagers and adults, and he participates in the production of several plays under different titles and positions every year.
In 2000, the music group “Apollon” was founded by him with the aim of experiencing “Iranian rock”. After a while, he took over the management of a group called “Traffic”. An album by this group was released in 2012 with his producer. In 2017, along with several musicians of the “Comment” group, he founded a group or a “project” named “Rock de Pen” (Roll the Pen) From the history of his activity, we can mention the performance of several performance-rock musics with digital painting in independent theaters, Chaharso Cinema Campus, Azadi Tower, Shiraz and also in the 32nd Fajr Music Festival in the compilation section.
Ashkan Khatibi staged the concert-theater “Ten Years of Solitude” in the second phase of the “Rock de Pen” group’s performances with a limited performance period at the end of 2016 and early 2017, which was opposed to the extension of its performance despite the reception of his audience. Khatibi had written and designed “Ten Years of Solitude” based on the events of his personal life, by putting together a collection of music, drama, cinema and digital painting. All its pieces were soundtracks of movies, because the line The story and thread of this performance is realized through cinema.
In the field of music, Khatibi has collaborated with people including Behrouz Safarian, Babak Saeedi, Amir Azimi, etc. and in the last two years of Nasser Cheshm Azar’s life, he accompanied him and the station’s orchestra as a singer on the Aqaqi concert tour. In addition to singing, his activities include playing the piano, guitar, and sometimes the harmonica.
Since 2013, Ashkan Khatibi announced the beginning of his collaboration with the newly established Charso cinema complex as a director, and in less than two years, he was able to, despite the initial speculations about the lack of success in attracting audiences due to the location of the complex in a commercial area in the center The city of Tehran, with the help of plans beyond the usual and mandatory screening of films, using the potential capacities of the collection to hold painting and photo exhibitions, theater, concerts, literary evenings, film reviews, etc., the position of this campus as It is one of the most important and popular cinema campuses in Iran and the palace of important festivals such as True cinema,Tehran Short Film and Fajr World Festival.
Together with Professor Behnam Fahhim Nia, at the beginning of 2019, he founded an international company called “The sound of silence” in Australia with the aim of producing plays, music, films and other works of art with a focus on fundamental human concepts and cultural interactions. Holding theater and cinema directing and acting workshops, national and international festivals with the aim of strengthening cultural relations between artists and art lovers in different countries, especially Australia and Iran, is one of the desired activities of this company.
The play “Celebration and Night School” written by “Harold Painter” was the first translation of Ashkan Khatibi that was able to receive a printing license and was published by Nila Publishing House in 2015. The unveiling of this book in Tehran was accompanied by a play reading of a part of it.
The play “Love and Curse” written by “Sam Shepard” is his second translation, which reached the third edition with the wide acceptance of the readers only two weeks after its first release. He translated it about 13 years ago, but these two works were subjected to many audits when they were published, and finally, after many years, they have been published in the form of a volume titled “Love and Curse” by Nila Publishing House. After holding two signing ceremonies in Tehran, one of which was accompanied by a reading of a part of the play by his students, signing ceremonies were held in the cities of Shiraz, Mashhad, Isfahan and Rasht with the welcome of the people.
The last translation published by him is the play “Heartless” written by “Sam Shepard” which was published in the last days of 2018 by Nila publishing house.
Khatibi started teaching acting professionally in 2018, and in recent years, he has spent most of his time and focus on teaching this profession in two age groups, teenagers and adults, and in addition to holding continuous courses in various schools in Tehran. He has held internal and external workshops for several days in cities such as Rasht, Mashhad, Shiraz and Manchester.
In its 18th annual celebration, the Theater Critics Association honored Ashkan Khatibi as an acting teacher in the teenage age group for basic education.
IMDb
Here you can find my filmography