Learn Persian With Chai And Conversation

In this episode, Leyla sits down with Hamid Rahmanian — the Iranian-American artist, filmmaker, and visionary behind some of the most ambitious Shahnameh projects of our time, including the illustrated Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, the touring live productions Feathers of Fire and Song of the North, and most recently Rostam: Tales from the Shahnameh, a beautifully illustrated edition for younger readers.Hamid takes us back to his childhood in Tehran, where he grew up in a traditional family with no exposure to the arts — not knowing that art school even existed until he was nineteen. He shares the moment Pink Floyd changed his life, the exam that nearly sent him to the front lines of the Iran-Iraq war, and the Saadi poem that pushed him to leave his successful Tehran design firm at the height of his career to start over in New York.The conversation traces his unlikely path through Pratt Institute, Disney Animation (which he begged to be laid off from), early documentary films exploring Iranian ide