Nasir Malekijoo

Nasir Malekijoo (b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian filmmaker, theatre director, visual artist, and performance studies scholar. Trained in Drama Studies in Tehran, he later earned a PhD from the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University. His practice bridges artistic creation and performance scholarship, with research focused on performance studies, post-dramatic theatre, visual culture, and object-based performance, particularly in relation to materiality, politics, and transnational performance. Across media, he works in film, theatre, installation, visual art, and interdisciplinary performance.

Professionally active in the Iranian theatre scene since 2005, his work draws on experimental and European theatre traditions while reworking them through the cultural, political, and aesthetic realities of contemporary Iran, extending this practice into cinematic and visual forms. As a writer, director, set and costume designer, and actor, he creates immersive worlds shaped by a singular artistic vision. His work is often associated with visual theatre and post-dramatic performance, foregrounding striking imagery and the transformation of space and objects into narrative elements while employing bitter satire and grotesque exaggeration to expose human stereotypes, social absurdities, and political tension.

In filmmaking, Malekijoo extends these concerns into narrative cinema and moving-image work shaped by black irony, human trauma, melancholy, eroticism, mystery, and politics. His films engage the sociopolitical anxieties of post-revolution Iran through atmospheres that merge psychological intensity with visual stylization. His engagement with cinema began to take shape during his studies at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, where he expanded into video art installation. Across his artistic and scholarly work, he blends humor, critique, visual storytelling, and filmic language into a distinctive artistic vocabulary.

Education:

Ph.D. in Theater, Bowling Green State University, USA, 2025.
M.F.A., Public Arts and New Artistic Strategies, Bauhaus University Weimar [Bauhaus-Universität Weimar], Germany, 2018.
B.F.A., Theater Arts [Acting], Islamic Azad University [IAU Central Tehran Branch], Iran, 2008.