Maryam Keshavarz received her MFA from NYU’s Tisch School in film direction. While a student Maryam made two critically acclaimed films: her short film The Day I Died garnered top accolades at international festivals including the Gold Teddy and Jury Award at the Berlin International Film Festival; and her feature documentary The Color of Love garnered over a dozen international awards and was broadcast internationally.

Maryam’s first narrative feature fiction film, Circumstance, premiered to critical acclaim at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, garnering the coveted Audience Award. Circumstance has won over a dozen international awards, including Best First Film at the Rome Film Festival and the Audience & Best Actress Awards at Outfest. Described by the Wall Street Journal as “supremely cinematic” and the Hollywood Reporter as “amazingly accomplished and complex,” Circumstance was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and had a theatrical release in thirteen countries.

Most recently, Maryam teamed with co-writer Paolo Marinou-Blanco to adapt award winning HBO doc Hot Coffee into a narrative film- The Untitled Oliver Diaz Story. The adaptation is set to be Maryam’s sophmore directing effort and is slated for production in late-Fall 2014.

As her third feature, Maryam returns to her Iranian roots with the story of The Last Harem. The film project The Last Harem, originally developed at the Cine Qua Non Lab and co-written by Paolo Marinou-Blanco, won the prestigious San Francisco Film Society/ Hearst Screenwriting Award and SFFS/ Kenneth Rainin Screenwriting Grant. Production slated for 2015.

Circumstance, Keshavarz’s first narrative feature film, is presently in post-production. In the charged political climate of today’s Iran, Circumstance explores the complex relationship of two girls as they grapple with a volatile adolescence. With Circumstance, Keshavarz participated in the 2007 Sundance Screenwriters & Directors Lab, Tribeca All Access, and FIND’s Producers Lab. She also received the Adrienne Shelly Grant, the Sundance middle east Filmmakers Award, the Annenberg Fellowship, Rotterdam Film Fest’s Hubert Bals Grant, Cinereach Production Award, and the San Francisco Film Society Post-Production Award.