Marjane Satrapi
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Marjane Satrapi, born 1969 in Rasht, Iran, is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, Academy Award-nominated animated film director (for her movie Persepolis), and children's book author.
She grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the Lycee Francais before leaving for Vienna in 1983, and then going to Strasbourg to study illustration. Her career began in earnest when she met David B., a French comics artist. She adopted a style similar to his, especially in her earliest works. Satrapi became famous worldwide because of her critically acclaimed autobiographical graphic novels Persepolis and Persepolis 2, which describe her childhood in Iran and her adolescence in Europe.
Persepolis was adapted into an animated film of the same name, which debuted at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and received a Special Jury Prize. Co-written and co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, the French-language picture stars the voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, and Simon Abkarian. The English version, starring the voices of Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn, and Iggy Pop, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in January 2008. She and director Vincent Paronnaud are currently teaming together again for a live-action adaptation of her graphic novel Chicken With Plums.
She currently lives in Paris. Following the Iranian elections in June 2009, Marjane Satrapi and Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf appeared before Green Party members in the European Parliament to present a document allegedly received from a member of the Iranian electoral commission claiming that the reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had actually won the election and not incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.