Age: 40
Occupation: Film director
Farhadi's A Separation won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year, a rare positive moment for the image of Iran in the West. While hawks in Israel, neoconservatives in Washington and messianic diehards in Iran bluster and threaten war, Farhadi's film — about the travails of a middle-class couple that is separating in Tehran — is a poignant, human work, a welcome splash of cold water on the fires of global geopolitics.