Pirooz Kalayeh, Ph.D., is an Iranian American auteur and multidisciplinary artist whose formally adventurous, hybrid cinema interrogates institutional power, displacement, and the boundaries of non-fiction storytelling. Working as a vital solo practitioner—frequently serving as his own cinematographer, editor, and sound designer—Kalayeh synthesizes cinematic disciplines into deeply intimate, politically urgent visual essays. His extensive independent directorial legacy spans two decades, bridging vanguard academic theory with robust global distribution lines. A globally recognized voice, Kalayeh's landmark feature films—including Ctrl Alt Del, Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen, and the award-winning Sometimes I Dream in Farsi—actively stream worldwide on major platforms like Amazon Prime and Apple TV. His cinematic practice has earned critical acclaim in national tastemaker publications like Indiewire, L.A. Weekly, and the Village Voice, with international exhibitions spanning the Galway Film Fleadh, the Johann Jacobs Museum, and elite cultural institutions worldwide. Kalayeh balances this prolific output with his role as a faculty member in film and media production at the University of Rochester, holding a terminal MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and a Ph.D. from the European Graduate School. Building on this formidable body of work, his latest documentary, My Room in Tehran Was Called America, hits the festival cycle this year—a masterful visual essay that directly explores the raw, complex territories of exile, identity, and cultural displacement.