Hamy Ramezan

Hamy Ramezan is a Finnish-Iranian film director and screenwriter. Having fled persecution in Iran, and survived Yugoslav refugee camps as a young boy, Ramezan and his family arrived in Finland in 1990. He graduated from the film school at UCA Farnham in 2007 and has since completed several short films. His short film LISTEN (2015) premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2015, has been screened at over 200 festivals and was nominated for Best Short Film at European Film Awards. ANY DAY NOW is his feature debut.

Director’s statement
“I tried to tell my truth, what happened to my family, but I learned cinema doesn’t work that way. Cinema demands truth, but cinematic truth has nothing to do with reality. You can’t put scene after scene your own experienced “truth” and assume you are telling an honest story. Cinema is a world of its own, it's a world with its own rules. The film has a balanced approach with facts and it is emotionally, cinematically, close to the truth.[...] Making ANY DAY NOW was a long and challenging project. I lost a lot, and I achieved a lot. The film was meant to be an intimate portrait of our journey because I missed those days. My life hasn’t been as exciting since that experience and I haven’t reached the same sense of belonging to my family and to other people in need, with the same intensity. During the writing process, I wrote many much darker versions of refugee life and despair that the only thing I wanted in the end, was to quit filmmaking. I went to the Greek island of Lesbos, went to the middle of the sea, and witnessed devastating tragedies, and I walked with Asylum seekers from Greece until Finland. I relived my childhood trip, even though very different and with the gaze of an adult seeing himself in every child. I recall those terrible days like yesterday; I didn’t want to write such awful stuff, but when I started, everything changed, I changed. Suddenly, I found myself in a place where my trauma was in search of its truth. During some of the hard times in my life, I learned that the world was a much brighter and more exciting place when I stopped categorizing myself. I became a better man. I love good films from all around the world, but I hope my life and who I become as an individual would affect my films – not other films per se. I have learned from Iranian masters a lot, and also from my Finnish colleagues. My university in England, Farnham UCA, was my foundation. They were my cinematic parents. UCA gave me a good solid foundation to become a good filmmaker. Now my producer Jussi is my mentor who guides me and helps me to adapt to an innovative and creative path. I situate myself in my heart and my mind; I get my influences from my family and friends. I love creativity and my work is the reflection of that. My name is Hamy Ramezan and I’m a filmmaker.”