Caveh Zahedi
How can you have a talk show if you can't remember what you're talking about? Getting Stoned With Caveh is a show in which Caveh Zahedi gets high with film director guests who join in or let him get stoned on his own. Directors joining Caveh include: Alex Karpovsky, Andrew Bujalski, Alex Ross Perry, Sophia Takal, Rick Alverson, Jon Jost, Bob Byington and Kevin Corrigan. - Factory25
Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi and member of The Yes Men Jaques 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.
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.
After finding an ad online for “video work,” Sara, a video artist whose primary focus is creating intimacy with lonely men, thinks she may have found the subject of her dreams. She drives to a remote house in the forest and meets a man claiming to be a serial killer. Unable to resist the chance to create a truly shocking piece of art, she agrees to spend the day with him. However, as the day goes on, she discovers she may have dug herself into a hole from which she can’t escape.
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.
A perpetual third wheel and awkward outsider, Joanna increasingly inserts herself into the relationship of her more charismatic roommate Isabel. The two women test each other's sexual and emotional boundaries in this surreal manifestation of jealous rivalry.
Zahedi’s acceptance speech at the Gotham Awards
Music video for a song by Don Lennon. Repurposes footage from Buster Keaton.
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.
Another film that Toronto International Film Festival programmer Thom Powers would rather you didn't see.
A mockumentary examination of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy using "breaking news" style interviews and commentary.
A compilation of footage from The Threee Geniuses. “The most intentionally psychedelic television show on cable TV.”
Seventy critics and filmmakers discuss cinema around the conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. Between 1998 and 2007, Kléber Mendonça Filho recorded testimonies about this relationship in Brazil, the United States and Europe, based on his experience as a critic.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts commissions Caveh Zahedi to make a film.
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. I Am a Sex Addict is Zahedi's unique brand of comedy at its confessional best.
From 2001 to 2005, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Matthew Weiss.
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.
In the Bathtub of the World is a video diary directed by Caveh Zahedi. It covers a year in Zahedi's life.
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.
Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life.
From 1999 to 2000, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Thomas Logoreci.
King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950's educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.
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.
The Sundance Channel gives Zahedi a still camera to chronicle his Sundance experience.
This film has nothing to do with Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story, but rather a naval base of the same name located in San Francisco Bay. Set amid WWII, TREASURE ISLAND follows two American code specialists that are hard at work trying to decipher Japanese messages and sending confusing messages back to deceive the enemy. The film explores sexual themes that were prevalent during the period, but not shown in the movies of that era.
Greg Watkins' romantic black comedy A SIGN FROM GOD depicts a semi-fictionalized day in the life of independent filmmaker Caveh (Caveh Zahedi) and his girlfriend Laura (Laura Macias) as they struggle with a series of challenges and accidents (including eviction from their apartment, possible pregnancy, and a car crash) while desperately seeking a sign from God about the future of their troubled relationship. Laura's increasingly pessimistic attitude she perceives that the cascading negative events of their lives portend a negative "sign" about the relationship is offset by Caveh's serene and abiding faith that everything happens for a reason... Director Greg Watkins is a frequent Caveh Zahedi collaborator. Watkins & Zahedi co-directed A LITTLE STIFF, and Watkins is the cinematographer of Zahedi's I DON'T HATE LAS VEGAS ANYMORE.
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.
A man and a woman, unpleasant bickering nitwits both, push a big stupid metaphor (in the shape of a piano) across Seattle.
1995 video art piece by Caveh Zahedi documenting his small role in 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 two -- 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.
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.
Experimental short film by Caveh Zahedi featuring the music of Debussy.
I made this spec music video between 1983 and 1985. It took me two years to make, as I was working in Super 8. I sent it to David Byrne whose response was: "It looks great, and I'd love to see more, but I don't really see what it has to do with the song except in terms of beats/edits." –Caveh Zahedi
A 'dog-u-mentary' about birth, loss and near death. The film follows three adults and a dog named Lola through Lola's pregnancy, the birth of her puppies, and the loss of each puppy to their new owners. Often funny and ultimately sad, the piece explores our love and attachments to dogs and our projections onto animals.
From 1996 to 1999, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi corresponded in a series of video-letters with his friend Jay Rosenblatt.
