Unconventional Storytelling with Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi
StoryForward NYC
Just how personal is too personal when it comes to storytelling? Join StoryForward NYC for a one-of-a-kind discussion on unconventional filmmaking and the art of personal storytelling by film diarist, Caveh Zahedi.
Zahedi, whose genre-bending, subversive films include: Tripping with Caveh (2004), I Am a Sex Addict (2005), and most recently his web series, The Show About the Show will provide insight into his 20+ year career as a “meta documentarian.” His unique brand of personal storytelling will be sure to inspire storytellers across mediums.
For more about Caveh Zahedi check out his bio below.
Caveh Zahedi (1960, USA) received a BA in Philosophy at Yale University and a MFA in Film Production at the UCLA School of Film and Television. After years of making experimental films, Zahedi’s first feature-length film, A LITTLE STIFF (1991), premiered in competition at Sundance. Zahedi’s second feature, I DON’T HATE LAS VEGAS ANYMORE (1994), received the Critics’ Prize at the 1994 International Film Festival Rotterdam. Caveh’s third feature, IN THE BATHTUB OF THE WORLD (2001), his third feature, was a one-year video diary in which he filmed one minute of his life each day for an entire year – the film aired on IFC and the Sundance Channel. In response to the events of 9/11, Zahedi co-produced (with filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt) an omnibus feature entitled UNDERGROUND ZERO for which he contributed a short film entitled THE WORLD IS A CLASSROOM. UNDERGROUND ZERO was named one of the top ten films of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a special citation at the 2002 San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards. His short WORM (2001) was presented at the 2002 IFFR and his film I AM A SEX ADDICT screened at IFFR in 2005. Zahedi’s most recent feature, THE SHEIK AND I (2012), was banned in the United Arab Emirates for blasphemy before premiering at the 2012 SXSW, where it was named best film at the festival by Film Comment.
“American filmmaker Caveh Zahedi has mastered the art of pushing people’s buttons. At 52, he’s best known for the 2006 comedy I Am a Sex Addict, a quasi-documentary about his obsession with prostitutes. Two of his previous documentaries, Tripping with Caveh and I Was Possessed by God, follow him tripping on psychedelic mushrooms, the latter resulting in “divine possession”. His films are profoundly uncomfortable, hysterically funny and bravely uncensored, driven by his charmingly mad self.” – Dazed & Confused
“For more than two decades, Caveh Zahedi has been exploring his neuroses and desires in awkward, provocative detail. From his first feature “A Little Stiff” through 2005’s “I Am a Sex Addict,” the film diarist has proved to be an amusingly off-beat guide to his own life. That tendency may very well reach its apotheosis with “The Show About the Show,” the irreverent meta web series that Zahedi launched this fall on the Brooklyn-based cable TV and digital network BRIC TV.” – Eric Kohn, Indiewire
“Before the internet made a social contract of documenting (and homogenizing) every waking moment of our lives, the Iranian-American filmmaker Caveh Zahedi filmed himself for one minute each day of the year 1999 in an attempt to prove the existence of God. For Zahedi, given the Bazinian notion that the film image is inherently a representation of reality, one can have faith that chance itself, engaged in the present tense, may form a type of narrative before our eyes—that randomness (a.k.a. God’s will) can be channeled through the ego of the artist.” – Micah Gottlieb, Fanzine
“The Show About the Show has more to say, and teach, about business, family, marriage, art, fear, bureaucracy and political correctness than anything I’ve seen in ages.” – Joe Swanburg, Talkhouse
Read more about Caveh Zahedi on his website
New York, NY – USA
Sunday, July 16 at 11:00 AM
6
StoryForward NYC
Just how personal is too personal when it comes to storytelling? Join StoryForward NYC for a one-of-a-kind discussion on unconventional filmmaking and the art of personal storytelling by film diarist, Caveh Zahedi.
Zahedi, whose genre-bending, subversive films include: Tripping with Caveh (2004), I Am a Sex Addict (2005), and most recently his web series, The Show About the Show will provide insight into his 20+ year career as a “meta documentarian.” His unique brand of personal storytelling will be sure to inspire storytellers across mediums.
For more about Caveh Zahedi check out his bio below.
Caveh Zahedi (1960, USA) received a BA in Philosophy at Yale University and a MFA in Film Production at the UCLA School of Film and Television. After years of making experimental films, Zahedi’s first feature-length film, A LITTLE STIFF (1991), premiered in competition at Sundance. Zahedi’s second feature, I DON’T HATE LAS VEGAS ANYMORE (1994), received the Critics’ Prize at the 1994 International Film Festival Rotterdam. Caveh’s third feature, IN THE BATHTUB OF THE WORLD (2001), his third feature, was a one-year video diary in which he filmed one minute of his life each day for an entire year – the film aired on IFC and the Sundance Channel. In response to the events of 9/11, Zahedi co-produced (with filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt) an omnibus feature entitled UNDERGROUND ZERO for which he contributed a short film entitled THE WORLD IS A CLASSROOM. UNDERGROUND ZERO was named one of the top ten films of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a special citation at the 2002 San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards. His short WORM (2001) was presented at the 2002 IFFR and his film I AM A SEX ADDICT screened at IFFR in 2005. Zahedi’s most recent feature, THE SHEIK AND I (2012), was banned in the United Arab Emirates for blasphemy before premiering at the 2012 SXSW, where it was named best film at the festival by Film Comment.
“American filmmaker Caveh Zahedi has mastered the art of pushing people’s buttons. At 52, he’s best known for the 2006 comedy I Am a Sex Addict, a quasi-documentary about his obsession with prostitutes. Two of his previous documentaries, Tripping with Caveh and I Was Possessed by God, follow him tripping on psychedelic mushrooms, the latter resulting in “divine possession”. His films are profoundly uncomfortable, hysterically funny and bravely uncensored, driven by his charmingly mad self.” – Dazed & Confused
“For more than two decades, Caveh Zahedi has been exploring his neuroses and desires in awkward, provocative detail. From his first feature “A Little Stiff” through 2005’s “I Am a Sex Addict,” the film diarist has proved to be an amusingly off-beat guide to his own life. That tendency may very well reach its apotheosis with “The Show About the Show,” the irreverent meta web series that Zahedi launched this fall on the Brooklyn-based cable TV and digital network BRIC TV.” – Eric Kohn, Indiewire
“Before the internet made a social contract of documenting (and homogenizing) every waking moment of our lives, the Iranian-American filmmaker Caveh Zahedi filmed himself for one minute each day of the year 1999 in an attempt to prove the existence of God. For Zahedi, given the Bazinian notion that the film image is inherently a representation of reality, one can have faith that chance itself, engaged in the present tense, may form a type of narrative before our eyes—that randomness (a.k.a. God’s will) can be channeled through the ego of the artist.” – Micah Gottlieb, Fanzine
“The Show About the Show has more to say, and teach, about business, family, marriage, art, fear, bureaucracy and political correctness than anything I’ve seen in ages.” – Joe Swanburg, Talkhouse
Read more about Caveh Zahedi on his website
New York, NY – USA
Sunday, July 16 at 11:00 AM
6
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