Pirooz Kalayeh is an Iranian American filmmaker, writer, and professor whose formally adventurous, hybrid cinema interrogates institutional power, displacement, and the boundaries of non-fiction storytelling. A solo practitioner who often serves as his own cinematographer, editor, and sound designer, Kalayeh blends cinematic disciplines to create deeply intimate, politically urgent visual essays. His latest feature film, My Room in Tehran Was Called America (2027), epitomizes this form-shattering approach—weaving bedroom diaries, cross-border histories, and choral critiques of Western structures into a singular cinematic tapestry. "I was born in Iran but raised in America. My whole life has always been split between these two worlds. Inside the house, was gormet sabzi, Persian rugs, and eating on the floor. Outside, was hamburgers, Star Wars, Scooby Doo, and America. I grew up like this all my childhood — and when I found myself in other communities, whether it was Hollywood...
I was never known for my beautiful handwriting and the many “S-satisfactory” marks I got on my handwriting assignments confirmed this. Even so, every now and then I would perhaps inadvertently turn out a brilliantly written handwriting assignment for which my usual satisfactory comment would be replaced with “O-outstanding”. Heading towards the end of the year, I had accumulated three of such scores. Alex, who at that point sat next to me and was equally horrible when it came to legible writing, somehow went through a metamorphosis. Almost as if a switch had been flicked on, his handwriting tremendously improved and it did not go unnoticed by Mr. Yowell. When he received his first outstanding mark I simply shrugged it off. With his second one I wondered if he was going to catch up with me. His third one, which also included a footnote of “excellent” had him bragging that he would beat me with our last assignment. I hardly doubted his prediction. Our notebooks were distributed bac...