Iranian-American documentary filmmaker/DP based in the American South.
About
Andy Sarjahani is an Iranian-American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer raised in a working class community outside the Arkansas Ozarks. He is interested in people, our relationship to place, and how that shapes our worldview. His work focuses on human ecology, the natural world, class, the American South and the experience of the Iranian diaspora, separately and when they overlap. His recent cinematography credits include Academy Award-nominated The Barber of Little Rock (The New Yorker, 2024), Southern Storytellers (PBS, 2023), and Untitled Brent Renaud Documentary (HBO, post-production).
His recent Director credits include The Smallest Power (Sundance, 2024); Wild Hogs and Saffron (Big Sky Doc Fest, 2024); American Grail: A Quest for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Big Sky Doc Fest, 2024), and Black Ag (Hot Springs Doc Fest, 2023).
His personal work has been supported by The Pulitzer Center, ITVS, The Gotham, HBO Documentary Films, The New Yorker, Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), DOC NYC, New Orleans Film Society, Southern Documentary Fund, Reel South, and PBS.
His debut feature documentary, Iranian Hillbilly (early production) was a Southern Documentary Fund 2022 grant recipient and the winner of New Orleans Film Festival 2022 South Pitch. He was a 2022 New Orleans Film Society Emerging Voices Fellow, 2023 CAAM Fellow, 2023 PBS Wyncote Fellow and 2024 HBO/Gotham Documentary Development Fellow.
