Growing Up Irooni: Hamid Rahmanian on Building Persian Culture, One Story at a Time

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 identity, and his eventual partnership with his wife Melissa — whose simple challenge, "Why don't you just do it?", sparked what would become nearly two decades of work bringing the Shahnameh to global audiences.

Hamid speaks honestly about the economics of cultural work that doesn't fit easily into grants or markets, why he refuses to make art for elites or museums, and what he's learned about the Iranian diaspora's complicated relationship with its own culture. He shares why he believes culture, not politics, is what endures — and why building it requires us to show up, spend money, and participate, rather than scroll past.

It's a generous, funny, and often pointed conversation with someone who has spent his life proving that Persian stories belong on every table, in every classroom, in every home — and that the people best positioned to make that happen are us.

Related Links

• Hamid Rahmanian's official site — kingorama.com (note: I wasn't able to verify the exact URL spelling — Hamid mentions it in the interview as "Kingarama" but this should be confirmed before publishing)
• Hamid's instagram- https://www.instagram.com/hamidinperson/
• Rostam: Tales from the Shahnameh — the new illustrated edition, available at his site (this is the book Leyla is giving away in the episode)
• Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings — the complete illustrated edition referenced throughout
• Feathers of Fire — the touring live production (full video viewable on his site)
• Song of the North — the second major live production, which toured over 100 times
• Tragedy of Siyāvash — his newest live production, just finished
• The Glass House — his 2008 documentary about a charity center for troubled teenage girls in Tehran
• Sir Alfred of Charles de Gaulle Airport — his documentary about Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian who lived in the Paris airport
• Saadi's Golestan — the source of the poem (tang-cheshmān nazar be meeve konand, mā tamāshā-konāne bostāni) that changed Hamid's life
• Ja'far Mahjoob — the Shahnameh scholar whose recordings ignited Hamid's love for the epic
• Zeffirelli's Don Giovanni at the Met — the production that convinced Hamid to stay in New York