Caveh Zahedi (; born April 29, 1960) is an American

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

, actor, and educator.

Early years

Zahedi was born in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian immigrant parents and raised in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Los Angeles

Zahedi subsequently returned to

to attend UCLA film school. In the UCLA graduate program he completed his first feature film, '' A Little Stiff'' (1991). The film was an experimental narrative in which he re‑enacted his unrequited love for a UCLA art student, using real-life participants. His feature film, '' I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore'' (1994), documented his attempt to bond with his estranged father and half-brother on a road trip to

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

San Francisco

In 1998, Zahedi moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, where he made his next feature, '' In the Bathtub of the World'' (2001). The film was a year-long video diary, with the premise of capturing one minute of footage daily for an entire year, and editing the footage down to 90 minutes. The film premiered on the

Independent Film Channel IFC is an American basic cable channel owned by AMC Networks. Launched in 1994 as the Independent Film Channel, a spin-off of former sister channel Bravo, IFC originally operated as a commercial-free service, devoted to showing independent fi ...

. In 2004, Zahedi released ''Tripping with Caveh'', a 30‑minute film which was originally intended to be used as a pilot episode for a television show that did not eventuate. It documents a

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the n ...

trip with indie-folk star

Will Oldham Joseph Will Oldham (born January 15, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded in collaboration with dozens of other musicians under variations of Palace (Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Son ...

. Starting in 2001, he taught film at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

Recent work

In 2005 Caveh's film '' I Am a Sex Addict'' was released, which took fifteen years to make due to financial and production difficulties. Through re‑enactments, the film recounted Zahedi's struggle with his addiction to

prostitute Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...

s and the havoc it wreaked on his marriages and romantic relationships. When the completed project was rejected by Sundance, Zahedi tried to distribute the film himself. It was only after he won the Gotham Award, for "Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You", that

IFC Films Independent Film Company (formerly IFC Films) is an American film production and distribution company based in New York City, New York. It is an offshoot of IFC (U.S. TV channel), IFC, owned by AMC Networks. It mainly distributes independent fil ...

picked up the film. Since that time, Zahedi has made several short films, including "Dada", published by Focus Features, and "The Unmaking of I Am a Sex Addict," released on the DVD magazine '' Wholphin''. Caveh's latest film ''The Sheik and I'', released in 2012, is a feature-length version of a shorter film commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial. It was subsequently banned in Sharjah. In 2015, the Factory 25 label released an anthology 6-DVD box set, ''Digging My Own Grave: The Films of Caveh Zahedi'', that collects all of Zahedi's works to date. In 2016, Zahedi began working on a television series for BRIC TV called '' The Show About The Show''. It is a show about its own making, with each episode detailing the making of the previous episode.

Awards

* 1997:

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

* 2005:

Gotham Awards The Gotham Awards () are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of ''Salmagundi'', published on ...

"Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You" * 2008:

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Recipients must be American citizens. Prizes have been aw ...

References

Notes

External links

Official site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zahedi, Caveh 1960 births Living people Academic staff of European Graduate School Film directors from Washington, D.C. American male film actors American people of Iranian descent People from Washington, D.C. San Francisco Art Institute faculty UCLA Film School alumni Yale University alumni