Stories that stay with you after the lights come up.
Sajjad Khandan is an award-winning writer, director and producer of psychological thrillers rooted in Iranian experience and told for audiences everywhere. Khandan Pictures is the company behind them.
Sajjad Khandan
Writer, director and producer working in the psychological thriller.
Sajjad trained as a director at Tehran University of Art and as a producer at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College in New York. He worked as an assistant director on several Iranian feature films and made behind-the-scenes films for the talk show Khandevaneh.
His short films have won awards at festivals in Australia, Canada and the United States, and he produced the feature The Sound of Silence, which took Third Prize in the international feature competition at the 47th Roshd International Film Festival. Earlier work is credited to Sajjad Shahedi Bagh Khandan.
At seventeen he founded Khandan Pictures with his brother. Since 2015 he has run Taft Film School, where more than fifty teenagers have made their first short film under his guidance. He has written seven original feature screenplays and is preparing to direct his first feature, The Bear's Trace.
- MFACinema Arts – Producing · Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, CUNY Brooklyn College, 2025
- BFACinema Arts – Directing · Tehran University of Art
- IndustryAssistant director on Iranian feature films · Behind-the-scenes films for Khandevaneh
- EducationFounder, Taft Film School · Founder, Aftab and Yaghout short-film festivals
Built by two brothers, grown in Taft
Khandan Pictures
Founded by Sajjad Khandan and his brother, producer Hamed Shahedi Bagh Khandan, when they were teenagers, the company has carried them from a small town in Yazd Province to Tehran, New York and now Los Angeles.
Taft Film School
More than fifty teenagers have made their first short film here, each one guided from idea to finished cut.
Aftab & Yaghout
Two short-film festivals created in Taft, آفتاب and یاقوت, giving local filmmakers a screen and an audience.
Eight short films, 2003–2023
In development
The Bear's Trace
A psychological thriller drawn from the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. The screenplay is complete and in its final rewrite, with Sajjad Khandan attached to direct.
- Written by
- Sajjad Khandan
- Director
- Sajjad Khandan
- Production
- Khandan Pictures
- Status
- Final rewrite · Seeking financing
The Sound of Silenceصدای سکوت
Produced by Sajjad Khandan with Rezvan Mahmoudi and Hamed Shahedi Bagh Khandan. Directed by Najmeh Tafti.
✦ Third Prize & Diploma of Honor, International Feature Fiction, 47th Roshd International Film Festival, 2017
Seven features, written by Sajjad Khandan
- 01The Bear's TraceIn development
- 02NajmaOriginal screenplay
- 03Lili and NaziOriginal screenplay
- 04Yalda & BandidosOriginal screenplay
- 05September in Love with the PomegranateOriginal screenplay
- 06Swan's DeathOriginal screenplay
- 07LootOriginal screenplay
Seven international awards
Financiers, producers and cast: let's talk.