1979 Revolution: Black Friday chronicles the Iranian Revolution.
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Game about Iran’s revolution nets first U.K. acting nomination for a Muslim actor

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) made a historic move this week: It nominated Navid Negahban for his acting performance in the video game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. It makes the first time a Middle Eastern and Muslim actor has been nominated for the prestigious award.

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Ink Stories studio developed and published the PC and mobile narrative game about the Iranian Revolution in April 2016. It earned a number of kudos for director Navid Khonsari, who is also of Iranian descent. The BAFTA awards are the United Kingdom’s equivalent of the Oscars in the U.S.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.