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This article presents the life of Iranian screenwriter and director Sohrab Shahid Saless (1944-1998) and his transnational film work, which was created as a result of multiple exiles, i.e., in Iran, the Federal Republic of Germany and the former Czechoslovakia. Saless is an important auteur filmmaker, who was part of and a driving force behind the Iranian New Wave in the first half of the 1970s. After his exile to West Berlin in 1974, he, who spoke Persian, German, English, French, and later Slovak, became part of the New German Cinema and was able to make a total of 13 feature films and documentaries between 1975 and 1991. Despite numerous national and international awards and his admission to the Academy of Arts in West Berlin, Saless retained his position as an outsider in the West German film and television landscape.

This article is based on the three-part monograph Die langen Ferien des Sohrab Shahid Saless. Annäherungen an ein Leben und Werk (The Long Vacation of Sohrab Shahid Saless: Approaches to a Life and Work), published in German in 2023 by Iranian-born Germanist Behrang Samsami. His publication is part of a rediscovery and reappraisal of the “great unknown of New German Cinema” that has been underway since 2016. This process is multifaceted: not only are Saless’ films being restored and digitized, making them accessible to an interested audience, but retrospectives and conferences are also being held. Finally, a series of books is also being published. This article also discusses this positive development, which is taking place not only in Germany, but also in English-speaking countries and Iran.