Khandan Picturesخندان
EXT. Bagh Khandan, Taft — Garden alley — Day

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.

Demo reel Sajjad KhandanWriter · Director · Producer
Demo reel · vimeo.com/1172253199
01 The filmmaker

Sajjad Khandan

Portrait

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, among them three for Cinderelleg, his BFA thesis film, and he co-wrote, edited and 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.

Born and raised in Taft, Yazd, Sajjad studied cinema at Yazd Visual Arts Technical High School, where he made his first short film, the documentary Cooking for Love, at seventeen as his graduation thesis. That same year 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 eight original feature screenplays and is preparing his first feature as director, with three projects in development: Lili Hozak, The Repetition of Crushed Velvet and The Bear's Trace.

  • MFACinema Arts – Producing · Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, CUNY Brooklyn College, 2025
  • BFACinema Arts – Directing · Tehran University of Art, 2009
  • DiplomaCinema · Yazd Visual Arts Technical High School, 2003 · first short film at 17
  • IndustryAssistant director on Iranian feature films · Behind-the-scenes films for Khandevaneh
  • TeachingFounder, Taft Film School, 2015
  • FestivalsDirector, 2nd Aftab Short Film Festival, 2016 · Founder, Yaghout Short Film Festival, 2021
01.1 The company

Built by two brothers, grown in Taft

Founded at seventeen

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.

Since 2015

Taft Film School

More than fifty teenagers have made their first short film here, each one guided from idea to finished cut.

Festivals · 2016 & 2021

Aftab & Yaghout

He directed the second edition of the Aftab Short Film Festival آفتاب in 2016, and in 2021 founded the Yaghout Short Film Festival یاقوت, giving filmmakers in Taft a screen and an audience.

03 Feature films

In development

Key art for Lili Hozak: a split pomegranate on the tiled edge of a pool Mood image
Lili Hozakلی‌لی حوضک
Feature · Psychological horror · English & Farsi

Lili Hozak

In the hills above Los Angeles, an Iranian makeup artist with a pending asylum case searches for her missing sister among the teenage drug couriers she vanished with, as they start turning up dead, each with her sister’s beauty mark pencilled on the cheek, and the police start looking at her.

The title is a Persian folk rhyme counted on a child’s fingers. Each of the film’s five chapters is one line of it, and each tells the same thirty nights from a different member of one household.

Written by
Sajjad Khandan
Director
Sajjad Khandan
Production
Khandan Pictures · Los Angeles
Status
Screenplay complete · Seeking financing
Key art for The Repetition of Crushed Velvet: crushed red velvet among shards of glass Mood image
The Repetition of Crushed Velvetتکرار مخمل مچاله شده
Feature · Psychological thriller · English & Farsi

The Repetition of Crushed Velvet

When a 16-year-old actress discovers her father’s affair with her best friend’s Persian immigrant mother, she wires his car, plants evidence to get her friend expelled, and turns his mistress against him, in a campaign that ends in a triple-loop finale.

Told in four episodes from three points of view, then a fourth that splinters into three versions of one act of violence.

Written by
Sajjad Khandan, Helia Behrooz & Najmeh Tafti
Director
Sajjad Khandan
Production
Khandan Pictures · Los Angeles
Status
Final rewrite · Seeking financing
Mood image for The Bear's Trace: a woman walking alone through a crowd in New York Mood image · AI-assisted
The Bear's Traceردپای خرس
Feature · Psychological thriller · English & Farsi

The Bear's Trace

Twenty-five years after her cousin’s death in a small Iranian desert town, a celebrated New York psychologist sees the girl’s face again in her daughter’s film, and must return to the place she fled to face the man everyone protected, and the silence she inherited.

Two timelines, New York in 2026 and Taft in 2001, and three generations of women. Drawn from the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, and set in the qanats, pomegranate orchards and carpet looms of Sajjad Khandan’s hometown.

Written by
Sajjad Khandan, Raha Shojaei & Najmeh Tafti
Director
Sajjad Khandan
Production
Khandan Pictures
Status
In development · Seeking financing
Produced · 2017
Poster for The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silenceصدای سکوت

Feature · Drama · 88 min · Iran

Co-written, edited and produced by Sajjad Khandan, with producers 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

Slate Original screenplays

Eight original features

  1. 01Lili Hozak لی‌لی حوضکIn developmentPsychological horror. An asylum seeker searches for her missing sister as the girls she vanished with start turning up dead.
  2. 02The Repetition of Crushed Velvet تکرار مخمل مچاله شدهIn developmentPsychological thriller. A sixteen-year-old takes apart her father’s affair, and everyone in it.
  3. 03The Bear's Trace ردپای خرسIn developmentPsychological thriller. A New York psychologist returns to her desert hometown to face the silence around her cousin’s death.
  4. 04Najma نجماOriginal screenplay
  5. 05Swan's Death مرگ قوOriginal screenplay
  6. 06Yalda & the Bandidos یلدا و باندیدوس‌هاOriginal screenplay
  7. 07September Was in Love with the Pomegranate شهریور عاشق انار بودOriginal screenplay
  8. 08Loot لوتOriginal screenplay
05 Contact

Financiers, producers and cast: let's talk.

Sajjad Khandan
Khandan Pictures
Office Los Angeles, California