Niv Sultan is an Israeli actress who graduated from the prestigious Yoram Loewenstein Acting and Performing Arts Studio where she specialized in song and dance. For her starring role in Tehran, Sultan learned to speak Farsi with no previous background in the language.

Sultan has participated in a variety of television series and films in Israel including Wild Horses, La Familia, Dead for a Moment, Summer Vacation Diaries and others. She held the lead roles in the Israeli television series, Eilat, produced by Hot Studios and her first professional job, She Has It, is where she met Tehran co-creator Dana Eden.

Sultan also held the lead role in the film, Almost Famous. Additional films include The Prom, an award-winning Israeli film by directors Tal Granit and Sharon Maimon. The film was nominated for the official competition at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in 2019 and led the list of nominees at the 2018 Ophir Awards with 12 nominations, of which it won three awards.

She was born in Jerusalem and is the second of four children and moved to Tel Aviv after high school to pursue acting.

Glenn Close, an eight-time Academy Award nominee, made her feature debut in The World According to Garp, for which she earned her first Oscar nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs, The Wife and more recently, Hillbilly Elegy.

Close has recently filmed a leading role in the comedy feature film Brothers with James Brolin and Peter Dinklage for director Max Barbakow. She was also seen in the Apple Original film Swan Song opposite Mahershala Ali for director Benjamin Cleary.

For her performance in the title role of The Wife, Close won 2019 Golden Globe, SAG, Independent Spirit and Critics Choice Awards as Best Actress, as well as nominations from BAFTA, the Gotham Awards, and the London Film Critics, along with the seventh Oscar nomination.

Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill’s The World According to Garp, earning her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction (also Golden Globe nominated) and Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA nominee).

Close received her sixth Academy Award nomination in 2012, along with Golden Globe and SAG nominations, for Albert Nobbs. She wrote the screenplay with Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville. Close was also a producer on the film and composed the lyrics for the Golden Globe and World Soundtrack-nominated song, Lay Your Head Down. For Albert Nobbs, she received the Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA) as Best Foreign Actress, was voted Best Actress at the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival and was honored for her performance by the San Sebastian Film Festival (Donostia Award), Hollywood Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival and the Palm Springs Film Festival.

Her additional film credits include Richard Marquand’s Jagged Edge, Barbet Schroeder’s Reversal of Fortune, Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet, István Szabó’s Meeting Venus, Maxie (Golden Globe nomination), Ron Howard’s The Paper, Stephen Herek’s 101 Dalmatians (Golden Globe nomination), Kevin Lima’s 102 Dalmatians, Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One, Robert Altman’s Cookie's Fortune, Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects, Merchant Ivory’s Le Divorce, Chris Terrio’s Heights, Rodrigo García’s Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and Nine Lives, Evening, Low Down, 5 to 7, Anesthesia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Julian Fellow’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Crooked House, What Happened to Monday, The Girl With All the Gifts and Four Good Days with co-star Mila Kunis, for frequent collaborator, writer/director Rodrigo Garcia.

From 2008 through 2012, Close headlined the critically acclaimed original legal thriller, Damages. For her riveting portrayal of high-stakes litigator ‘Patty Hewes’ Close won two consecutive Emmys (2008 and 2009), two subsequent Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe Award (2008) and three SAG Award nominations, all as Best Actress in a Drama Series.

Close has a total of 16 Golden Globe nominations and wins among her film and television performances. Close has a total of 14 Emmy nominations and wins. Her third Emmy win was Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special for Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story. As executive producer, she also received an Outstanding Made For Television Movie Emmy nomination, and the prestigious Peabody Award.

Other television credits include The Shield (Emmy and Golden Globe nominations), The Lion in Winter (Golden Globe Award, SAG Award, Emmy nomination), The Elephant Man, Something About Amelia (Emmy and Golden Globe nominations), Stones for Ibarra, The Ballad of Lucy Whipple and In the Gloaming (Emmy nomination, CableACE Award). She executive produced and starred in Richard Pearce’s musical remake of South Pacific. She also executive produced the Sarah, Plain and Tall trilogy for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, starring in all three opposite Christopher Walken. For the trilogy she received both Lead Actress and Outstanding Drama Emmy nominations as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Sarah, Plain and Tall and a Lead Actress Emmy nomination for Skylark.

Close made her theatre, and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince’s revival of Love for Love. Her theater credits include The Crucifer of Blood, The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs (Obie Award), Barnum (Tony nomination) and Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, both directed by Mike Nichols, and Sunset Boulevard (also Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards). In London, she reteamed with the director of the original Sunset Boulevard stage production, Trevor Nunn, in his Royal National Theatre revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. She returned to Broadway for the 2014 revival production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance.

In 2017, Close reprised the role that won her the 1995 Tony Award: Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Boulevard, in a newly conceived and mounted production that premiered at the London Coliseum in the spring of 2016 (prior to a Broadway run). For that performance she won a London Evening Standard Award and an Olivier nomination.

Close made her Public Theater debut to rave reviews in the fall of 2018 in the New York premiere of Jane Anderson’s Mother of the Maid, starring as the mother of Joan of Arc. Directed by Matthew Penn, the production ran as a limited engagement at the Public’s Anspacher Theater from September 25 through December 23, 2018.

In 2010, Close co-founded Bring Change to Mind, a charity dedicated to ending the systemic stigma and discrimination around mental illness. The organization’s top priority is the establishment of stigma-free Bring Change To Mind High School clubs around the nation, with 400 clubs currently active. The idea for the organization came about following Close’s first-hand observation of battles with mental illness within her family. For more information, please visit www.Bringchange2mind.org.

Close actively supports Puppies Behind Bars. She is a trustee emeritus of The Sundance Institute, having served as a board member for 16 years.

Dana Eden is an award-winning creator and producer. Over the course of the last 16 years, Eden has created highly-acclaimed scripted series and documentary shows.

In 2011 Eden created the comedy series Mother’s Day alongside Daniella London. It was picked up by CBS. The pilot starring Debra Messing was filmed in NYC.

Over the past few years, Eden created and produced the successful drama series, The Stylist for Keshet International and Magpie for Yes Studios which won best script in the Berlin festival. This year Eden won the international Emmy prize for best drama series

Daniel Syrkin is an acclaimed Israeli film and television director who has worked across all genres and formats, from scripted TV series to features, as well as documentaries.

Born in Moscow in 1971, his family moved to Israel in 1972 and settled in Jerusalem. Syrkin was an officer in the IDF, serving seven years before being discharged as Major.

He is a graduate of the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University and has received numerous international awards. He is the winner of Best Director at the Israeli Academy Awards and seven Israeli Academy of Television Awards for best director or best series. Syrkin is also the creative force behind such successful television projects as Mossad 101, The Gordin Cell and Out of Sight.