Caveh Zahedi
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All Eyes on Me
Lena Dunham and Caveh Zahedi are among a surprisingly small group of filmmakers who make themselves the subjects of their own films. Whether it’s a man dealing with his sexual urges (Zahedi’s I Am A Sex Addict) or a girl searching for her place in a post-collegiate world (Dunham’s Tiny Furniture), their sometimes painful honesty makes audiences both laugh and cringe. We had them sit down to talk about the joys, frustrations and creative rewards of making autobiographical films.
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 23, 2010 -
THE BABY FILMS OF INDIE FILMMAKERS
Leading up to the release this weekend of Thomas Balme’s Babies, FilmInFocus (which, full disclosure, I am a co-editor of) asked four independent filmmakers to make one-minute films about their own babies. The shorts are unexpected and diverse and scope, and I decided to post two here. The first, Dada, is from Caveh Zahedi (I am a Sex Addict), who wrote about his filmmaking experience, “My wife was against it but I prevailed. This said, it was the longest minute of my life.” And second, Untitled, is from experimental filmmaker Jennifer Reeves, who wrote: While capturing the exuberance and wonder […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2010 -
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS
Over at Caveh Zahedi’s blog, the director of I Am a Sex Addict ponders the downside of posting one’s daily thoughts as a way of promoting a film: One of the interesting things about having a blog is that anyone can attack you anytime and can do so anonymously. At least with film critics, their names are on their reviews. But with a blog, anyone can post a hostile comment, without any kind of accountability. In short, a blog, like a personal film, can serve as a lightning-rod for free-floating cyberspace aggression. I’m not sure what to do with these […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2006 -
I POD
The distribution panel I moderated last week is now a podcast. (If I had known this was to be archived on all of your hard drives, I probably would have been more concise in my questions…) Click on the link above to hear Caveh Zahedi, Jay Duplass, Susan Leber and me discuss the treacherous shoals of DIY distribution and offer some hard-earned advice to all of you aspiring directors and producers out there. For a print preview, here’s what Indiewire’s Eugene Hernandez had to say about it.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 20, 2006 -
CROSS COUNTRY DIALOGUE
Over at Green Cine, Hannah Eaves writes up a panel on new distribution models that overlaps the discussion I moderated earlier this week for the IFP. Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi was at both panels, and the Sonoma, California panel went into different tangents and featured folks like moderator Joel Bachar (of Microcinema), GreenCine’s Content Acquisitions Director Jonathan Marlow, Wellspring’s VP of Theatrical Sales Marisa Keselica, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos and Houston King of Goodbye Cruel Releasing.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2006 -
NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION PANEL
I posted below a response to Sujewa in the comments section, but I thought I’d repost it here along with a few notes coming out of the panel I moderated last night sponsored by the IFP entitled “Distribution Now! Distribution How?” Prompted by IFC’s opening of Caveh Zahedi’s I am a Sex Addict this week, the panel brought Zahedi together with two other filmmakers – Susan Leber, producer of Down to the Bone, and Jay Duplass, writer/director of the upcoming The Puffy Chair, whose films took the long road to getting their features in theaters. (Down to the Bone opened […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 11, 2006 -
PEN PALS, PART TWO
The debate playing out at Caveh Zahedi’s blog over, specifically, Landmark’s backing out of screening his I Am a Sex Addict gets more and more fascinating as Zahedi and Mark Cuban go back and forth in a increasingly long series of blog entries. At the very least, it’s a more interesting and thorough debate of the whole “day and date” releasing strategy than we’ve seen in the trades as it deals with the inevitable conflicts that will arise between competing alliances of theater chains, cable providers and theatrical distributors. After a seemingly futile letter to Steven Soderbergh to intervene, Zahedi […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 -
DISTRIBUTION NOW… DISTRIBUTION HOW?
I’ll be moderating an IFP-sponsored panel this coming Monday on the challenges of the current distribution environment for indies, focusing on filmmakers who have persisted despite initial adversity to see their films out in the marketplace. It’s linked to the New York opening of Caveh Zahedi’s I Am a Sex Addict and tickets cost ten bucks, but $8 of the ticket price goes back to the theater screening Caveh’s film and you get a voucher enabling you to see the movie during the first week. We’re doing it, obviously, to help Caveh’s grosses in the first week as these are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 -
PEN PALS
There’s a fascinating back-and-forth going on over at Caveh Zahedi’s blog over an unusual development that’s occurred just days before the release of Zahedi’s feature I am a Sex Addict. The film has been caught in the middle of corporate politics involving IFC (the film’s distributor), Comcast (its video-on-demand supplier), HDNet (Mark Cuban’s production and distribution company), and Landmark Theaters (the theater chain also owned by Cuban). It starts with Zahedi explaining the situation: I got a phone call today from IFC. Apparently, Mr. Mark Cuban (the very wealthy owner of the Dallas Mavericks) has decided to pull our movie […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 3, 2006 -
ZAHEDI’S SIRIUS REQUEST
One of the things I’ve learned producing independent films and trying to get them publicity: it’s really hard to break into national television and radio media if you’re an indie movie. The bookers on Letterman, Leno and all the morning shows will consider your movie if you break $5 million at the box office and are in the top 50 markets… but usually not before unless you’re already a major celebrity. Still, I would have imagined that an exception might be made for Caveh Zahedi. Over at Zahedi’s blog, the writer/director of the autobiographical I am a Sex Addict is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 28, 2006
