Shahin Gorgani

Shahin Gorgani is an Iranian filmmaker, writer, musician, actor, and interdisciplinary artist. His work explores intimacy, memory, displacement, and the relationship between bodies and landscapes. Moving freely across cinema, performance, and installation, and between fiction and nonfiction, he uses form to reconstruct personal experience and reshape perceptions of distance, absence, and presence.

I see art as a way of questioning how we perceive and experience the world. I believe form grows out of who we are: our lived realities, instincts, and unconscious. As an educator, I encourage students to question conventions, trust cinematic language and the intelligence of the viewer, and resist making work to fulfill expectations. I want the classroom to be a space for curiosity, experimentation, and stepping into the unknown, where students discover their own process and distinct voice through creating, and share their way of seeing the world with others.

Shahin Gorgani

Awards, Recognitions & Honors

• Premiered Saba in competition at the 79th Edinburgh International Film Festival (2026), followed by international screenings across Europe, North America, and Asia.
• Premiered When There Were Trees at Outfest Los Angeles (2023).
• Selected for the Cine Qua Non Lab and named one of 11 finalists for the 2026 New Voices Filmmaker Grant for the feature screenplay Rehearsals.
• Awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant for the interdisciplinary installation The Tree I Carry.
• Served as a juror at the Guadalajara International Film Festival.
• Taught at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
• Performed as a musician with Grammy-nominated Kayhan Kalhor and the Shams Ensemble at venues including Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress.
• Acted in three plays written and directed by Bahram Beyzaie, one of Iran’s most influential contemporary playwrights and directors.