Ashkan Najafi wins new German cinema award at Hof for ‘Neda’

IranWire reports that Ashkan Najafi, an Iranian director and screenwriter who lives in Germany, has won an award for the support of new German cinema at the 60th Hof film festival. He received the prize for his film "Neda". The film tells the story of an Iranian interpreter who works at Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. In the course of her work she comes face to face with a man who tortured her in the past and is now seeking asylum in Germany. Najafi was born in Tehran in 1983 and has lived in Germany since 2005. Before turning to cinema he worked as a journalist, with a focus on freedom and reform movements in Iran. After moving to Germany he studied film and media technology at the University of Hamburg. The award, worth 10,000 euros, is meant to support young filmmaking talent and to encourage new directors to keep working despite the high cost of fiction films. Najafi received it on Thursday, October 22, 2026, at a ceremony in the Freiheitshalle in Hof. Photo by Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.