Biography

Rayka Zehtabchi is an Oscar-winning Iranian-American director based in Los Angeles. Her directorial debut, Madaran, is an Iranian language short that won Jury awards at top film festivals and qualified for the 89th Academy Awards in 2016. She won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 91st Academy Awards for Period. End of Sentence., a documentary about a group of village women in Northern India who start a sanitary pad-making business in an effort to improve feminine hygiene and de-stigmatize menstruation. Along with the film’s release, Rayka helped co-found the non-profit “The Pad Project” to fight the stigma of menstruation and improve feminine hygiene worldwide. Rayka’s passion is telling human stories that bring awareness and action to little-known social causes. In both documentary and narrative, she brings a naturalistic approach to her storytelling, striving for honesty and intimacy on screen.