Andy Sarjahani

Andy Sarjahani is an Iranian-American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer raised outside the Arkansas Ozarks. He is interested in people, our relationship to place, and how that shapes our worldview. His recent cinematography credits include Academy Award-nominated The Barber of Little Rock (The New Yorker, 2024), Southern Storytellers (PBS, 2023), and Arkansas to Ukraine: The Death and Life of Brent Renaud (HBO, 2025).

His recent Director credits include The Smallest Power (Sundance, 2024); Wild Hogs and Saffron (Winner Best Short Documentary River Run Film Festival, 2024); American Grail: A Quest for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Big Sky Doc Fest, 2024), and Black Ag (Blackstar, 2024).

His personal work has been supported by The Pulitzer Center, ITVS, The Gotham, HBO Documentary Films, The New Yorker, Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), DOC NYC, New Orleans Film Society, Southern Documentary Fund, Reel South, and PBS.

His debut feature documentary, Iranian Hillbilly (in production) was a Southern Documentary Fund 2022 grant recipient and the winner of New Orleans Film Festival 2022 South Pitch. He was a 2022 New Orleans Film Society Emerging Voices Fellow, 2023 CAAM Fellow, 2023 PBS Wyncote Fellow and 2024 HBO/Gotham Documentary Development Fellow.