​Meet Omid Nooshin

​Meet Omid Nooshin

Omid Nooshin, was born in Guildford, Surrey, in 1974. He is the son of Hoshyar Nooshin, Emeritus Professor of Space Structures at Surrey University, and great nephew of Iranian theatre director, Abdul Hussein Noushin. His obsession with movies started at an early age, watching films before his school day. It was the movie “Star Wars” that inspired him to make his own short films. This all began at age 11. How did he finance its production? From money received as legal damages for a taxi crash in Los Angeles in 1985 (ironically, the crash had occurred while Nooshin’s vacationing family were on their way to Universal Studios).
At age 16, Nooshin became interested in acting, joining a youth drama group based at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. During this time, inspired by acting classes at the theatre, he wrote and directed his first feature-length film, A State of Mind, a political drama depicting the brainwashing of rebellious youth by a shady government agency.
The following year, Nooshin was awarded an arts grant from a local architectural firm, which he used to finance The Antipolitic, a metaphoric meditation on the clash of capitalist and socialist ideology. Nooshin shot the film in Hannover, Germany, under the guidance of his uncle, Ebrahim Talayedar, an architect and artist. The short film reached the national final of the Panasonic Young Videomakers competition in 1992, screening at London’s prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
While studying at Christ’s College School, Nooshin wrote his second feature-length film, Goldfish, a psychological thriller depicting a troubled teenager’s descent into delusional psychosis. The film was awarded Best International Film, Best Youth Film, Best Sound, and Best Acting, at the IAC’s International Film Festival in 1993.
Nooshin continued his education in film study at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. His graduation film The Patient was financed by selling a Persian rug he had inherited from his grandparents.
After graduating he continued making more ambitious short films, which he was able to finance using salaries from directing local cinema commercials. In 1996 he wrote and directed Rooftop, a short drama, which went on to win international awards. Nooshin also landed work with prestigious London commercials production company Park Village, directing TV commercials in London, Prague, Amsterdam, and Miami for multinational corporations.
During this time Nooshin took every opportunity to get close to movie production, gate crashing the sets of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and George Lucas’ Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. He also traveled to New York and spent much of his time at Lee Strasberg’s famed ‘Method’ acting institute The Actor’s Studio.
Nooshin’s next short, Panic, followed in 1999. Based on a true story of a carjacking gone awry, and financed by the UK Arts Council, Panic. The film was screened in several international festivals including The Edinburgh Film Festival and the Los Angeles Short Film Festival. This exposure opened doors for Nooshin with the film industry executives in London and Hollywood. Soon after, Nooshin began writing feature scripts. In 2008 Nooshin’s script for Last Passenger, a train thriller inspired by the writings of American anthropologist Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death), was voted onto the Brit List of favorite British screenplays.
Nooshin was soon signed by the top Hollywood talent agency CAA. In order to help secure finance for the movie, Nooshin directed and co-produced a £500 ‘fake trailer.’
The trailer was instrumental in attracting the backing of Pathé, the British Film Institute, and Pinewood Studios, and Last Passenger went on to strong pre-sales at the 2011 Cannes Film Market, the business counterpart of the Cannes Film Festival. It eventually became a $2.5m production, filmed at Shepperton and Pinewood Studios. Besides writing and directing, Nooshin shared camera operating duties, and was an uncredited co-editor. The film was distributed in 70 countries. In the US and UK, it became the #1 Indie Film on iTunes movie rentals. Last Passenger opened to strong reviews. Many reviewers noted Alfred Hitchcock’s influence on Nooshin’s debut film.
Nooshin went on to receive a nomination for the Douglas Hickox Award For Best Debut Director at The British Independent Film Awards in 2013.
After Last Passenger, Nooshin continues writing assignments, including penning the science fiction thriller Redivider for Hollywood producer Aaron Ryder (Memento, Donnie Darko), which is currently in post-production, and story consulting for the UK’s Bristol based animation studio Aardman.
He is also developing his own writer-director projects, including an action thriller set on a hijacked oil rig for US producer Steve Bing, a supernatural thriller set in California, and a science fiction conspiracy movie set during the early days of Mars colonization.
He is currently represented by the WME talent agency in Los Angeles, and recently married his longtime partner at Pinewood Studios.