Caveh Zahedi

A documentary record of the live event hosted by Video Store(age) on February 27 at Life World in New York City. The roasters included the following luminaries, trouble makers, and last-minute substitutions: Yung Chomsky, Lily Lady, Christian Lorentzen, Sharon Mashihi, Peter Rinaldi, Joe Swanberg, Onur Tukel, Pacho Velez, and Joshua Z. Weinstein.

In 2022, Caveh Zahedi decided to stage a production of James Joyce's Ulysses with barely any money and just a month to write, cast and rehearse. Ulysses, New York documents the chaos in Zahedi's distinctive, intensely confessional style over the course of 24 hour long episodes. Currently a work in progress.

Saint Abdullah commission Caveh Zahedi to make a music video for their song "Wiretap for Oral".

20 years after Tripping with Caveh, Will Oldham and Caveh Zahedi get stoned together.

The epic conclusion to Caveh Zahedi's THE SHOW ABOUT THE SHOW

The conclusion of Caveh Zahedi's group project with his students at The New School.

Part 1 of The Class About the Class - Caveh Zahedi's project made with his students at The New School.

The continuing saga of Caveh Zahedi's collaboration with students at The New School.

Caveh Zahedi connects with a vivacious French performance artist residing in Berlin, sparking an online romance. Fueled by their chemistry, they decide to meet face-to-face. Things…do not go as planned.

Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi receives a fan letter from a French singer living in Berlin. They begin an epistolary correspondence which graduates to Zoom calls that become increasingly intimate. They decide to meet in London and bring a camera person to film what happens.

Caveh gets stoned with indie filmmaker Bob Byington whose film, Registered Sex Offender, he once acted in.

Caveh gets stoned. Jon Jost doesn't.

Caveh gets stoned with Kevin Corrigan.

A collection of films produced at the New School between February and May of 2020. Caveh Zahedi's students were asked to make personal documentaries based on a series of personal prompts.

Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi and member of The Yes Men Jacques Servin give classes in bringing about political change and make a web show of this. A hilarious and painfully honest report on this process, in which students and teachers slowly but surely get to know – and appreciate – one another.

Caveh gets stoned but Alex Ross Perry doesn't.

The prelude to The Class About the Class - Caveh Zahedi’s project made with his students at the European Graduate School in Malta.

Independent Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi is trying to make a television show. He persuades BRIC TV, a Brooklyn non-profit Arts organization, to finance a television show whose premise is that every episode will be about the making of the previous episode. In the process of creating the show, everything can-and does-go wrong. The cast, a who's who of Brooklyn's independent filmmaking community, includes Alex Karpovsky, Eleonore Hendricks, Dustin Defa, and Onur Tukel.

Caveh is commissioned by Fandor to film awkward celebrity encounters at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. This is a documentary about his time at the festival filming those encounters.

A Fandor commissioned documentary of Caveh's awkward encounters with celebrities at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

Independent filmmaker Caveh Zahedi meets his childhood idol.

Caveh gets stoned and Rick Alverson doesn't.

Caveh Zahedi looks for the grave of Joyce Hunter, a figure of infatuation for the artist Joseph Cornell.

This is the commissioned (and ultimately banned) film which Zahedi made for a biennial celebration. His The Sheik and I documentary is about his experiences making, and then dealing with the fallout stemming from having made, this film.

Zahedi’s acceptance speech at the Gotham Awards

Caveh gets stoned. Andrew doesn't.

A found footage video utilizing Buster Keaton's "One Week" with a song by Don Lennon.

Found footage film based on a real phone conversation.

Caveh gets stoned with Alex Karpovsky.

Sophia's friends decide to leave so she can get stoned with Caveh and talk about interpersonal relationships, future plans, and a forwarded email.

Unfinished video diary

Caveh persuades Mandy and their couples therapist to let him film their sessions.

When an American filmmaker is commissioned to make a film for a Middle East Biennial on the theme of 'art as a subversive act,' his film is banned for blasphemy, he is asked to destroy every copy, and threatened with arrest.

The story of how and why an American programmer tried to censor an Iranian-American filmmaker for making a film about censorship in the Middle East.

Focus Features commissions Zahedi to make a one-minute film about his one-year old to promote the film Babies.

An animated short about a film-shoot gone awry.

Caveh Zahedi tells the story of a contentious encounter with a college security guard, a story about a moment's lapse into racism. The film attempts to shed light on the mental process by which racism becomes internalized.

Just moments before his third wedding, Zahedi relates with utter sincerity and astonishing candor his obsession with prostitutes. He retraces his romantic and sexual history, including his ideological commitment to open relationships, that led to two disastrous marriages and several very pissed off ex-girlfriends.

Caveh Zahedi takes DMT.

The screen is split between 'documentary' and 'reenactment' for seven different scenes featuring Caveh Zahedi and his students.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts commissions Caveh Zahedi to make a film.

From 2002 to 2005, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Bill Brown.

From 2001 to 2005, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Matthew Weiss.

Test scenes shot for an aborted adaptation of Maurice Blanchot's Thomas the Obscure.

With longtime collaborators Greg Watkins (A Little Stiff) and Thomas Logoreci, the charismatic, experimental filmmaker Caveh Zahedi approaches legendary songwriter Will Oldham (Palace Brothers, Bonnie "Prince" Billy) in an unconventional interview. Caveh offers up a serving of psychedelic mushrooms and a view on the relationship between the musician and his fan.

A short documentary on the filming of the hotel scene in I Am a Sex Addict.

A short documentary on the filming of the ecstasy scene in I Am a Sex Addict.

A short documentary on the filming of the mushroom scene in I Am a Sex Addict.

A short documentary on the filming of the wedding scene in I Am a Sex Addict.

A collection of shorts made by various directors in response to 9/11.

Caveh Zahedi's allegory about 9/11.

On January 1st, 1999, Caveh Zahedi started a one-year video diary. The idea was to shoot one minute each day. This is the result.

An off-screen narrator remembers a time he was five years old, walking to school in a heavy rain, wearing a yellow slicker and cap. He relates to us that a boy he'd never seen before ran up to him and said that it was raining worms. Our lad of five is on the cusp between believing anything he hears and entering the age of reason. He asks for proof. He holds out his hand.

From 1999 to 2000, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Thomas Logoreci.

The Sundance Channel gives Zahedi a still camera to chronicle his Sundance experience.

On Valentine's Day, 1993, Caveh Zahedi decided to ingest 5 grams (a very large dose) of hallucinogenic mushrooms. For the first time in his mushroom-taking history, he had an experience of "divine possession," in which he felt that a divine being took possession of his body and spoke through him, in a voice that was not his, and with knowledge that he himself did not possess. He later tried several times to repeat the experience. I WAS POSSESSED BY GOD is the documentary record of one such attempt.

This film is a birthday gift to Caveh Zahedi's girlfriend Amada (Mandy) Field. Mr. Zahedi arranged for one of his friends to film her all day on her birthday as his special birthday gift to her.

Caveh Zahedi films the making of A SIGN FROM GOD (a film in which he starred).

From 1996 to 1999, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Jay Rosenblatt.

Another meditation on loss.

A meditation on loss

A look into the far-too-brief life of D. Montgomery, the sound recordist for Caveh Zahedi's I DON'T HATE LAS VEGAS ANYMORE.

Video diary shot during the making of Alexander Payne's Citizen Ruth

A real-life comedy about a filmmaker who takes a road trip to Las Vegas -- with his real-life father and 16-year-old half-brother, plus a crew of three -- in the hopes of proving the existence of God.

A Little Stiff is a 1991 minimalist comedy directed by Caveh Zahedi and Greg Watkins based on true events and re-enacted by the actual participants. Caveh Zahedi plays himself as a neurotic film student who develops a crush on art student Erin McKim after a brief encounter in an elevator.

Prelude to I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore, shot two years prior.

From 1987 to 1990, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Gary Green.

Fragments from a would-be abecedarium: E IS FOR ELEVATOR, J IS FOR JUMP, K IS FOR KISSING, M IS FOR MAGGOT and S IS FOR STRANGER.

A mother and daughter disagree about whether to put their dying dog to sleep.

A creative edit of a Christian new wave rock band made by Caveh Zahedi in 1988.

A guy wakes up one morning to find a stranger in his bathroom who claims to be his son.

Experimental short film by Caveh Zahedi featuring the music of Satie.

Experimental short edit of a sped up version of T. Rex's "Cosmic Dancer" set to looping footage from Charlie Chaplin's One A.M. (1916).

Experimental short edit of Talking Heads' "Pull Up the Roots" set to looping footage from Charlie Chaplin's The Adventurer (1917).

An experimental short film demonstrating the Kuleshov effect.

Experimental short film which uses execution footage and animation set to Kath Bloom's song 'Fall Again'