ATABAI’ the latest film directed by Iranian women director Niki Karimi will open tomorrow, Friday June 10th at West LA, and Laemmle Royal ( 7:10 pm ) and Encino, Laemmle Town Center (7:20 pm) for one week.
ATABAI is a middle-aged architect who’s been back from Tehran to his home village in Azerbaijan province. Due to his social class and ethnicity, he has gone through failure in love as a young university student. Since then, by bringing prosperity to his village, he has found respect and dignity among the ones who love him. Yet, his sister’s suicide after her forced marriage at the age of 15 keeps haunting him. He takes care of his nephew, Aidin and a garden as two precious legacies of his sister.
Despite being busy and successful with his work, Atabai feels lonely and scared to confront love again.
Born in 1971 in Tehran, Niki Karimi is filmmaker, actress and producer. She began her work as an actress in “Sara” directed by Dariush Mehrjoui, that brought her the best actress award from “San Sebastian” film festival and “Nantes film festival in 1992. She played in several movies for which she was nominated or awarded for best 
actress award at acclaimed film festivals including “Cairo film festival” in Egypt, “Taormina film festival” in Italy and “Fajr film festival” in Tehran and also Iranian film Society. She holds 60 acting credits, excluding the series, worked with splendid directors and received various awards. In 2001, she started film making by making a documentary about infertility entitled “To have or not to have”, it was screened at “Barbican Film Center” and “IFC Center” in Uk and many other acclaimed film festivals around the world.
In 2005 she made her directorial debut film entitled “One night” which was screened at annes Film Festival, Uncertain regards. After that (One night) has been shown in numerous international film festivals. “A few days later” premiered at “Rome film festival” was her second film. Final Whistle and Night Shift were also screened at acclaimed film festivals around the globe. Her most recent film “Atabai” was nominated in five sections at Fajr Film Festival and was invited for the competition at Asia Pacific Screen Award Niki Karimi has been among the jury members at several acclaimed and prestigious international film festivals around the globe. She was jury member at Cannes, 2007. She was also juror at Berlinale, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Edinburgh, Thessaloniki, to name a few.
She has also translated several books including novels and poetries into Farsi. Niki Karimi has been photographer for the past twenty years and has attended numerous photo exhibitions.
Festivals & Awards:
*WINNER: BEST FILM & BEST DIRECTOR at Iranian Critics & Writers Circle Awards 2022
Fair Film Festival, Iran 2020
Nominated for Best Film Award/ Best Director Award/ Best Cinematographer/ Best
Supporting Actor/ Best Must
Asia Pacific Screen Award, Australia 2021
In Competition for fiction films.
Cambridge International Film Festival, Uk, 2021
In Competition for fiction films.
Dhaka International Film Festival, Bangladesh, 2022
In Competition for fiction films- Women Filmmakers