Saman Kesh (born Saman Keshavarz) is an Iranian-American filmmaker based 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, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States. He is known for his narrative music video work for notable artists such as

Basement Jaxx Basement Jaxx are an English electronic music duo consisting of Felix Buxton (born 30 April 1970) and Simon Ratcliffe (born 28 November 1969). The pair got their name from the regular club night they held in Brixton, London, UK. They first ros ...

Calvin Harris Adam Richard Wiles (born 17 January 1984), known professionally as Calvin Harris (and sometimes under the stage name Love Regenerator), is a Scottish DJ, record producer, singer, and songwriter. His debut studio album, ''I Created Disco'' (2007 ...

Kygo Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll (; born 11 September 1991), known professionally as Kygo (), is a Norwegian DJ and music producer. He first received international attention with his December 2013 remix of the track " I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran and his De ...

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, !!!,

Vitalic Pascal Arbez-Nicolas (; born 18 May 1976), better known by his stage name Vitalic (), is a French electronic music producer. History His first singles were released in 1996 and 1997, but were confined to the underground electronic music scen ...

, Apparat and

Porter Robinson Porter Weston Robinson (born July 15, 1992) is an American DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Robinson began producing electronic music during his adolescence. He sign ...

. In 2009, during his attendance as a film student at Art Center College of Design, Kesh came into light with his first music video for Cinnamon Chasers' first single: "Luv Deluxe". Luv Deluxe has received over six million views to date, won

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

Best Music Video award in 2010, and was shown in

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's Director Showcase in 2010 at

Cannes Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions Internatio ...

. In 2012, he went on to direct videos for

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran ( ; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently r ...

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and

, his video for the track 'Stamina' from French producer

sparked controversy with its thematic statements regarding weight loss and obesity in pop culture. The video resulted in Kesh winning his second

"Best Video" award in 2013. In 2013, Kesh moved into the narrative world with his short sci-fi short film, ''Controller''. The short received the No. 2 spot on Deadline Hollywood's 2013 ViewFinder's list, which polls Hollywood industry professionals on their favorite short films of the year. Later that year, he collaborated with celebrity author

Bret Easton Ellis Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American author and screenwriter. Ellis was one of the literary Brat Pack (literary), Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique as a writer is the expression of extreme acts ...

and the British alternative rock band

on a short film series titled ' Unfortunate Details' which examined cases of sexual incidents gone awry. They were released as two

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

s, for the band's album, ''

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''. In 2014 Kesh served as overseeing advisor to a team of directors for Visa's "Samba of the World", a digital campaign for the

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. Made in collaboration with AKQA and COPILOT Music and Sound, this interactive music video experience allowed fans to listen and watch 32 different music videos, based on 32 different countries, in real time. His video "Never Say Never", for

details the development of a fictional product called TWERKBOT, a Twerking robot. The video features controversial themes on robotics, sexuality, and pop-culture. His most recent video for the 2015

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was for the artist

, which featured an alien astronaut couple that crash-lands a costume party. Kesh is currently developing several films to direct, including ''Cubed'', setup at

Lionsgate Entertainment Starz Entertainment Corp, formerly known officially as Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation and commonly as Lions Gate and/or Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company currently headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Founded by ...

, which is loosely based on the 1997 cult film, ''

Cube A cube or regular hexahedron is a three-dimensional space, three-dimensional solid object in geometry, which is bounded by six congruent square (geometry), square faces, a type of polyhedron. It has twelve congruent edges and eight vertices. It i ...

''. '

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. It is updated several times a day, with en ...

'' announced that Kesh will be adapting and directing a feature-length version of ''Controller'' with

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...

Filmography

Music videos

References

External links

Youngdirectoraward.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kesh, Saman Living people 1986 births American people of Iranian descent Film directors from Los Angeles