Kaveh Nabatian

Kaveh Nabatian is an Iranian-Canadian director and musician whose evocative filmmaking has brought to life stories from the margins of society and across the world: Haiti, Nunavut, Mexico, India, New York and beyond. His film work ranges from A Crack in Everything, a feature doc about Leonard Cohen, to masterminding the Rotterdam-premiering, experimental, seven-director anthology feature The Seven Last Words, to his award-winning feature narrative debut, the Cuba-set and shot Sin La Habana, about an Afro-Cuban ballet dancer seeking to escape his country with an unsuspecting tourist.

His cinematic collaborations with musicians include projects with Arcade Fire, The Barr Brothers and Leif Vollebekk. As a composer and trumpet player, he’s toured the world and released several critically-acclaimed albums with his Juno award-winning band Bell Orchestre.

Committed to cinema education and outreach, Kaveh continues to work with emerging filmmakers at Haiti’s Cine Institute and in the Alqonquin community of Kitigan Zibi.

With a restless creative spirit that transcends genre boundaries, Kaveh aspires to make films that have the immediacy of music, and to make music that has the evocative energy of film.

Prison of the Sun (Cinédanse film)
Award-winning Iranian-Canadian director and musician Kaveh Nabatian presents Prison of the Sun, a reaction to the pandemic and social unrest, as told through the street dance of “waacking”, by world-renowned dancer Axelle Munezero.

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