Mehrjui , 83, attended the film program at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early 1960s and during the early 1970s became known as co-founder of Iran’s new wave of social realism thanks to his 1969 drama “The Cow” set in a rural Iranian village that collectively suffers the loss of its single cow. His subsequent works comprise the more intimate 1996 film “Leila” which looks at different conceptions of marriage in Homeland; “The Pear Tree” (1999) which examined the Persian bourgeoisie; and “Bemani” (2002) about provincial women struggling to lead normal lives in Iran’s ultra-conservative society.