Kaveh nabatian biography of donald

“The OSM is one of the best orchestras in the world, so this is slightly terrifying, to be honest,” says Nabatian who divides his time between New York and Montreal. “Talk about imposter syndrome! I can barely play my trumpet compared to them, and I get to be onstage with these incredible musicians. It’s going to be amazing.

“I feel so lucky — though nothing fell into my lap. We all worked super, super hard to get these opportunities.”

‘A powerful thing’

Music and film often merge in Nabatian’s multidisciplinary artistic world.

About his 2017 feature documentary A Crack in Everything about Leonard Cohen, commissioned by the CBC and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Nabatian states on his website, “The film is completed, but there are evil vultures in the music industry who want to make money off of a dead poet, so it’s not available for wide release. If you want a private screener, please send a message.”

So, how does Nabatian feel about show business?

“I think that a lot of people in the music industry — especially in the U.S. — wield a lot of power but don’t actually do anything amazing or constructive. Dealing with these gatekeepers is really gross, and there is also an equivalent in the film industry.”

Despite hurdles in his industries, Nabatian maintains that his time and studies at Concordia helped prepare him for a career in the arts.

“It’s hard to get into Concordia’s film program,” Nabatian says. “But once you’re in there, more than teaching you skills to make films in the real world, they teach you how to think about film, and how to dream in filmic language. That is actually a much more powerful thing.”

Currently on the film festival circuit, Nabatian’s Sin La Habana opened the Reelworld Film Festival in Toronto in October, where it swept awards including Best Director, Best Writer, Best Cinematographer, Best Actor and Best Actress. The film closed t

Sin la Habana

Sin La Habana is my first feature film, a labour of love that began with a trip to Cuba in 2005.

Leonardo, a classical dancer, and Sara, a lawyer, are young, beautiful and in love. They’re also ambitious, but their dreams are thwarted by Cuba’s closed borders. Their ticket to a brighter future lies with Nasim, a tourist with a taste for the exotic. An Iranian-born Canadian, she’s struggling with her own demons. Power, money, creativity and destiny intertwine in a passionate love triangle with a hint of magic, where cultures clash in a torrid dance between Quebec’s winter and Havana’s sultry Malecón.

Sin La Habana holds a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is a New York Times Critic’s Pick. It is available in the US on major streaming platforms (Apple TV, Amazon, Youtube, etc.), distributed by Breaking Glass Pictures. Available in Canada on iTunes.

Premiered at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (October 2020)

Selections: Miami IFF, VIFF, BendFilm, Ashland, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, AFI Latin, Mosaic Int’l South Asian, Phoenix, San Francisco Jewish,  Reelworld Opening Night Film (Toronto), New York Jewish, Atlantic Dance Festival, FICFA, Les Percéides, UK Jewish Closing Night Gala Film, Philadelphia Jewish, Barcelona Jewish

Awards:

• Prix de la diffusion Québecor  (Festival du Nouveau Cinéma)
• Best Canadian Film (Vancouver International Film Festival)
• Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature (Nominated)
• Canadian Screen Award for Best Screenplay (Nominated)
• Prix Iris, Best First Film – Won (Sin La Habana)
• Prix Iris, Best Director – Nominated (Sin La Habana)
• Prix Iris, Best Film – Nominated (Sin La Habana)
• Prix Iris, Best Screenplay – Nominated (Sin La Habana)
• Prix Iris, Revelation of the Year – Nominated (Sin La Habana)
• Prix Iris, Best Editing – Nominated (Sin La Habana)
• Prix Iris, Best Sound – Nominated (Sin La Habana)
• DGC Discovery Award (Nominated)
• Best Director (Bend Film Festival)
• Gerald Hershfeld Award for Best Ci

Kaveh Nabatian is the author and one of the seven directors of the concert film The Seven Last Words (2018).

What does Franz Joseph Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ mean to you?

I like Haydn’s music in general. It’s classical music—therefore, timeless—but I must say that it has rarely affected me in such a powerful way as with this composition. Usually, Haydn’s music is more controlled, more rigid, but there is something greater in The Seven Last Words of Christ. The themes of the sonatas are vast: death, abandonment, forgiveness… They bring out something greater in the composer, and he manages to channel a lot of things into this music. The sonatas are quite long and have different colours. He ends with the powerful Il Terremoto, which almost sounds like heavy metal. It’s very different; I feel like he’s just turned everything upside down.

Where did you first hear Haydn’s work?

Sarah McMahon, the cellist of the Callino Quartet, is a good friend of mine. I was touring with my band in the UK, and we spent some time at her house. She was the one who introduced me to the piece. The quartet wanted to make a recording of it. I listened to it then and thought it was amazing. It made me want to be part of their project, to make something with it. At first, I was going to do everything myself, but after thinking about it some more, I thought it would be better to have several directors and make a film that is universal.

How did you choose the directors, and how did the collaboration go?

At first I looked for directors from all over the world, but it turned out to be too complicated logistically. With Catherine Chagnon, the producer, we focused instead on Quebec directors from different backgrounds and religions. We needed as much variety as possible. They were mostly people I knew or that Catherine knew. I also wanted to have more women than men, because I found the music so interesting and different&