Kaveh Nabatian

Kaveh Nabatian is an Iranian-Canadian musician and film director, known as a trumpeter and keyboardist with the Juno Award winning orchestral post-rock band Bell Orchestre.

Career As a filmmaker, Nabatian was first noted for his 2010 short film Vapor, about an older Mexican man who comes to terms with homosexuality. The film was a Genie Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 31st Genie Awards, and a Prix Jutra nominee for Best Short Film at the 13th Jutra Awards, as well as one of TIFF’s Canada's Top Ten films for the year.

In 2017, Nabatian directed Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, a documentary on Leonard Cohen which was broadcast by both CBC Television in English and Ici Radio-Canada Télé in French. In 2019, he was the lead director, alongside Sophie Goyette, Juan Andrés Arango, Sophie Deraspe, Karl Lemieux, Ariane Lorrain and Caroline Monnet, of the experimental anthology film, The Seven Last Words (Les sept dernières paroles), set to the music of Joseph Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross, Op. 51. It premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Nabatian's debut feature film, Sin La Habana, about an Afro-Cuban ballet dancer who seduces an Iranian Jewish woman in order to escape Cuba, premiered at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in 2020 before being commercially released in 2021. The film stars Yonah Acosta and was written in collaboration with Cuban hip hop producer Pablo Herrera. He received Canadian Screen Award nominations for the John Dunning Best First Feature Award and Best Original Screenplay at the 10th Canadian Screen Awards in 2022 for Sin La Habana. He won the Prix Iris for Best First Film and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Gala Québec Cinéma in 2022.

Nabatian’s feature documentary Kite Zo A: Leave the Bones, a sensorial exploration of Haitian rituals, premiered at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in 2022, where it won the Prix pour la Paix Audience Award. It had its international premiere at South by Southwest in 2023 before going into commercial release. He won the Best Cinematography in a Documentary and was nominated for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 12th Canadian Screen Awards in 2024.

He has also directed music videos for artists including Aurora, Bell Orchestre, Leif Vollebekk, The Barr Brothers, Sarah Neufeld, Little Scream, Lakou Mizik & Joseph Ray and Half Moon Run.

Kaveh Nabatian won the award for Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary at the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards for his work on Kite Zo A: Leave the Bones.

Filmography YearTitle Contribution Note 2004 My Brand New Life Director, cinematographer TV series 2008 Facteur humain Director, cinematographer TV series 2008 Sunday Afternoon Writer, director, composer Short film 2010 Taxi Libre Writer, director Short film 2010 Vapor Writer, director Short film 2011 St-Henri, The 26th of August (À St-Henri, le 26 août) Segment director, cinematographer Documentary feature 2013 Dive Writer, director, composer Short film 2014 Nan Lakou Kanaval Director, cinematographer, producer Documentary short 2015 Holika Director, cinematographer, producer Documentary short 2017 Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything Writer, director, producer Documentary 2019 The Seven Last Words (Les sept dernières paroles) Writer, segment director Feature film 2020 Without Havana (Sin la Habana) Writer, director, composer Feature film 2022 Kite Zo A: Leave the Bones Director, cinematographer, Producer Documentary

Discography Bell Orchestre Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light (2005) Who Designs Nature's How (2009) As Seen Through Windows (2009) House Music (2021)

Awards and nominations