In 1991, he was awarded a prize in 41st Berlin International Film Festival for his Snake Fang.[1] This was not his sole international prize. At the Cairo International Film festival in 1979 he got from the International Catholic Organisation for Cinema (OCIC), the OCIC Prize for his film The Journey of the Stone. Masoud Kimiai is widely regarded as one of the architects of the Iranian New Wave, a movement in the 1960s and 1970s that sought to combine realism, social critique, and poetic storytelling. Unlike mainstream commercial cinema of the time, Kimiai’s films tackled moral ambiguity, social injustice, and the struggles of ordinary .
Films like Qeysar (1969) set the template: the anti-hero protagonist, bound by personal codes of honor, navigating a society rife with corruption and moral compromise. The film’s gritty realism, combined with a melodramatic narrative of revenge, resonated deeply with audiences and inspired a generation of filmmakers to explore Iranian identity, honor, and social inequality.
