Parvin Ansary is a woman who against the wishes of her family and the expectations of her culture and against a male dominated industry made it as a film director and producer in Italy as a foreign woman. I have known Professor Parvin Ansary since I was in 6th grade in Rome all the way back to 1961 when I was 11 years old. In 1975 and ’76, I acted in two of the films she made in Iran. We have remained and continue to be friends all these years and in fact we consider each other family. There are few people on this planet male or female whose intellect I admire and respect as much as hers. My own father, who went to Harvard College when he was 15, came close but then he was a philosopher and never made a movie in his life. Parvin is not just an academician but is very much of this world too…For me personally I have always considered Parvin to be my very own “Auntie Mame!”
