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, 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 Canadian Screen Award-nominated feature narrative debut, the Cuba-set and shot Sin La Habana, which won multiple awards from international film festivals, was a New York Times Critic’s Pick, and holds an 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. His most recent film, the award-winning Kite Zo A: Leave the Bones, is a sensorial documentary feature shot in Haiti, made in collaboration with Haitian musicians, poets, Vodou priests, fishermen, and daredevil rollerbladers. It had its international premiere at SXSW and subsequently won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary.

His cinematic collaborations with musicians and dancers include projects with Aurora, Arcade Fire, The Barr Brothers, Leif Vollebekk, Clara Furey, and Axelle Munezero. And 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 has worked with emerging filmmakers at Haiti’s Artists 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.

Kaveh is an IFP Narrative Lab fellow, and an alumnus of TIFF Writers Studio, Berlinale Talents, TIFF Talent Lab, and TIFF Pitch This.