Rayka Zehtabchi Biography
Rayka Zehtabchi is an Iranian-American film director based in Los Angeles. Her directorial debut, Madaran, is an Iranian language short film that has screened worldwide at established film festivals, winning jury awards at Hollyshorts, Urbanworld, and Cleveland International.
Rayka’s senior thesis film at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, WE HOME, stars rising talent Ashton Sanders, who played the leading role of “Chiron” in last year’s Best Picture winner, Moonlight, and Lonnie Chavis from NBC’s This Is Us. Rayka graduated from USC in August 2016 with a degree in Film Production.
Period double-qualified for the academy awards in 2018, winning Jury and audience awards at Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival and Cleveland International. The film also took home Jury and audience awards from AFI Fest among many others and was nominated in the Documentary Short category of the 91st Academy Awards®.
Rayka’s passion is telling human stories that bring awareness and action to little-known social causes. She brings a naturalistic approach to her storytelling, striving for honesty and intimacy on screen.
Rayka recently directed a branded short for Netflix’s digital exclusive series What I Wish You Knew, which centered on the non-binary gender identity. She’s currently developing a narrative feature film based on her family’s experience immigrating from Iran to the United States.
Rayka’s passion is telling human stories that bring awareness and action to little-known social causes. She brings a naturalistic approach to her storytelling, striving for honesty and intimacy on screen.
Rayka Zehtabchi Oscar Nomination 2019 – Period. End of Sentence Documentary
Ten films will advance in the Documentary Short Subject category for the 91st Academy Awards. One hundred four films had originally qualified in the category. Members of the Documentary Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.
Rayka’s documentary, Period. End of Sentence. was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 Best Documentary Short Award. Madaran qualified for the 89th Academy Awards in 2016.
Her short documentary, Period. End of Sentence., is about a group of village women in Northern India who start a sanitary pad business in an effort to improve feminine hygiene and de-stigmatize menstruation. Along with the film’s release, the Period team co-founded the non-profit “The Pad Project” to fight the stigma of menstruation and improve feminine hygiene worldwide.
In a rural village outside Delhi, India, women lead a quiet revolution. They fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. “Period. End of Sentence.” — a documentary short directed by Rayka Zehtabchi — tells their story. For generations, these women didn’t have access to pads, which lead to health problems and girls missing school or dropping out entirely. But when a sanitary pad machine is installed in the village, the women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering the women of their community. They name their brand “FLY,” because they want women “to soar.” Their flight is, in part, enabled by the work of high school girls half a world away, in California, who raised the initial money for the machine and began a non-profit called “The Pad Project.”
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Rayka Zehtabchi Contacts
Rayka Zehtabchi
raykazehtabchi@gmail.com