One of Merila Zareie’s earliest roles was in Two Women (1999), by leading female filmmaker Tamineh Milani. Zareie also appeared in Milani’s The 5th Reaction (2003) and The Unwanted Woman (2005), where she was nominated for Best Actress at the Fajr International Film Festival. In 2004 Zareie won Fajr’s Best Supporting Actress award for Friday’s Soldiers (2004). She worked with renowned director Asghar Farhadi on the award-winning films A Separation (2011) and About Elly (2009), where she was also nominated for Best Actress at Fajr. Zareie starred in the 2010 APSA-winning film The Other and 2012 APSA Best Feature Film nominee The Bear. Most recently she has worked with female directors Narges Abyar for Track 143 (2013) and Pouran Derakhshandeh for Hush: Girls Don’t Scream (2013), which saw her nominated for Best Supporting Actress at Fajr.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and emerging. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
