Craig Zobel is an American film director who also co-founded Homestar Runner.^[1]

Biography[link]

Zobel was born in New York and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, later studying film at the North Carolina School of the Arts alongside David Gordon Green and other future collaborators. After graduation, Zobel worked on Green's first three films — George Washington (2000), All the Real Girls (2003) and Undertow (2003), as either co-producer, production manager or second unit director.^[2] He currently lives in New York.

Homestar Runner[link]

Homestar Runner is a Flash animated internet cartoon which mixes surreal humor with references to pop culture. Zobel co-founded it along with Mike Chapman while they were students at the University of Georgia. On a day off while Zobel and Chapman were working summer jobs surrounding the 1996 Summer Olympics, a visit to a bookstore prompted them to parody the state of children's books, leading to the creation of the cartoon.^[3]

Film career[link]

Zobel has directed, written, and produced several films, including George Washington, Turkey in the Straw, and Great World of Sound.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Craig Zobel at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website for Homestar Runner

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Caveh Zahedi (born on April 29, 1960) is an American film director and actor of Iranian descent.^[1]

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Zahedi was born in Washington, D.C. to Iranian immigrant parents. He studied philosophy at Yale University. Upon graduation, Zahedi moved to Paris, France to find funding for his films, but failed to interest any French producers in his projects about Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Eadweard Muybridge. He also succeeded in estranging himself from his idol, Jean-Luc Godard, after he phoned Godard at 3 a.m. He also produced an experimental music video of a Talking Heads song, which was rejected by David Byrne.^[1]

Los Angeles[link]

He subsequently returned to Los Angeles to attend UCLA film school. In the UCLA graduate program he completed his first feature film, A Little Stiff (1991), with fellow student Greg Watkins. The film was an experimental narrative in which he re-enacted his unrequited love for a UCLA art student, using real-life participants. A Little Stiff premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim, but did not bring commercial success.

His next feature film, I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore (1994), documented his attempt to bond with his estranged father and half-brother on a road trip to Las Vegas. The film generated criticism after Zahedi insisted that his father and brother take the drug Ecstasy with him on film.

San Francisco[link]

In 1998, Zahedi moved to San Francisco, where he made his next feature, In the Bathtub of the World (2001).^[2] The film was a one-year video diary, with the premise of recording one minute of each day for an entire year, and editing the footage down to ninety minutes. The film premiered on the Independent Film Channel.

In 2001, Zahedi made Tripping with Caveh, a 30-minute film of a mushroom trip with singer-songwriter Will Oldham (aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy).

Recent work[link]

In 2005 Caveh's film,I Am A Sex Addict, which took fifteen years to make due to financial and production difficulties, was released. Through re-enactments, the film recounted Zahedi's struggle with his addiction to prostitutes and the havoc it wreaked on his marriages and romantic relationships. When the completed project was rejected by Sundance, Zahedi tried to distribute the film himself. It was only after he won the Gotham Award, for "Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You,"^[3] that IFC Films picked up the film. Since that time, Zahedi has made several short films, including "Dada," published by Focus Features^[4], and "The Unmaking of I Am a Sex Addict," released on the DVD magazine Wholphin.^[5]

Caveh's latest film The Sheik and I,^[6] is a feature length version of a shorter film commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial and then subsequently banned. ^[7]

Zahedi has also appeared in several films in acting roles, including Alexander Payne's Citizen Ruth, Greg Watkins' A Sign From God, Richard Linklater's Waking Life, and Registered Sex Offender. In September 2009, Zahedi had a role in the small film Unlimited Dreamtime - A 2 Week Film.^[8]

Zahedi is a professor of confessional cinema at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland and he teaches film classes at The New School in New York.^[1]

Awards[link]

• 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2005 Gotham Awards "Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You"
• 2008 Rome Prize

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• Caveh Zahedi Faculty Page at European Graduate School. (Biography, bibliography and video lectures)
• Caveh Zahedi at the Internet Movie Database