Zal Batmanglij | |
|---|---|
 Batmanglij at Wondercon 2012 | |
| Born | April 28, 1981 Vence, France |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 2011–present |
| Parent | Najmieh Batmanglij |
| Relatives | Rostam Batmanglij (brother) |
Zal Batmanglij (born April 28, 1981) is an American film director and screenwriter. He directed and co-wrote the 2011 film Sound of My Voice and the 2013 film The East , both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Netflix series The OA , which debuted in 2016.
Batmanglij was born in 1981 in France [1] to Iranian parents and grew up in Washington, D.C. His mother, Najmieh Batmanglij, is a cookbook author and chef; his father is a book publisher. [2] His younger brother Rostam was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend. Both brothers are gay. [3]
Batmanglij studied anthropology and English at Georgetown University, graduating in 2002. At Georgetown he met Mike Cahill in a philosophy class. They took a screenwriting course together and co-directed a short film that won the Georgetown Film Festival. Brit Marling saw the film and asked if she could work with them. [4] Several years later, following Marling's graduation, the three friends moved to Los Angeles, California, where Batmanglij was a directing fellow at the AFI Conservatory. [5] For his thesis film, he made a 35mm short called The Recordist (2007), which starred Marling. [6]
In 2011, Batmanglij's debut feature, Sound of My Voice, written with Marling and starring her, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. [7] Shortly thereafter, Fox Searchlight Pictures purchased Sound of My Voice, as well as Batmanglij and Marling's next feature script, The East. [8] Batmanglij also directed The East, starring Marling, Elliot Page, and Alexander Skarsgård. The film premiered at Sundance in 2013. [9]
Batmanglij and Marling collaborated to create drama series The OA , which debuted in 2016 on Netflix. It was written by Marling and Batmanglij, who produced the series along with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner of Plan B, and Michael Sugar of Anonymous Content. [10]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | The Recordist | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Sound of My Voice | Yes | Yes |
| 2013 | The East | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Executive producer | Creator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Wayward Pines | Yes | No | No | No | Episodes "Our Town, Our Law" and "One of Our Senior Realtors Has Chosen to Retire" |
| 2016–2019 | The OA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Directed 13 episodes, wrote 7 episodes |
| 2023 | A Murder at the End of the World | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Directed 4 episodes, wrote 6 episodes |
| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Gotham Award | Breakthrough Director | Sound of My Voice | Nominated |
| 2013 | Independent Spirit Award | Best First Feature | Nominated | |
| Traverse City Film Festival | Founders Prize For Best Drama | The East | Won | |
| 2018 | Writers Guild of America Award | Episodic Drama | The OA(Episode "Homecoming") | Nominated |
Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård is a Swedish actor. Born in Stockholm, son of actor Stellan Skarsgård, he began acting at age seven but quit at 13. After serving in the Swedish Navy, Skarsgård returned to acting and gained his first role in the US comedy film Zoolander (2001). He played Brad Colbert in the miniseries Generation Kill (2008), and had his breakthrough for portraying vampire Eric Northman in the television series True Blood (2008–2014).
Najmieh Khalili Batmanglij is an Iranian-American chef and cookbook author. Born in Tehran, she fled the Iranian Revolution in 1979, moving first to France, then the United States, building a career as a cookbook author as she went. Her first book, published in French, was called Ma Cuisine d’Iran (1984), followed by eight cookbooks in English, from Food of Life (1986) to Cooking in Iran (2018). The Washington Post hailed her in 2018 as "the grande dame of Iranian Cooking."
Rostam Batmanglij, known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whose first three albums he produced. He has been described by Stereogum as one of the greatest pop and indie-rock producers of his generation. Rostam also works as a solo artist and is a member of electro-soul group Discovery. He produced his first number-one album, Vampire Weekend's Contra, when he was 27 years old.
Another Earth is a 2011 American science fiction drama film directed by Mike Cahill and starring Brit Marling, William Mapother, and Robin Lord Taylor. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in January, and was given a limited theatrical release on July 22, 2011, by Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film earned two nominations at the 38th Saturn Awards for Marling's performance and for Cahill and Marling's writing. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls it slow paced but soulful.
Brit Marling is an American actress and screenwriter. She rose to prominence after starring in several films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, including Sound of My Voice (2011), Another Earth (2011), and The East (2013), each of which she co-wrote in addition to playing the lead role. She co-created, wrote, and starred in the mystery series The OA (2016–2019), and the thriller miniseries A Murder at the End of the World (2023).
Sound of My Voice is a 2011 American psychological thriller film directed by Zal Batmanglij in his feature directorial debut from a script written by Batmanglij and Brit Marling, and starring Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius and Marling. The plot focuses on two documentary filmmakers who attempt to expose a cult led by a charismatic leader (Marling) who claims to be from the future.
Mike Cahill is an American filmmaker.
The East is a 2013 thriller film directed by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, and Elliot Page. Writers Batmanglij and Marling spent two months in 2009 practicing freeganism and co-wrote a screenplay inspired by their experiences and drawing on thrillers from the 1970s. The American studio Fox Searchlight Pictures had bought rights to distribute Batmanglij's previous film Sound of My Voice and also collaborated with the director to produce The East. With Ridley Scott as producer and Tony Scott as executive producer, Fox Searchlight contracted Scott Free Productions, headquartered in London, to produce the film. The East was filmed in two months in Shreveport, Louisiana at the end of 2011. The film premiered to strong reviews at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2013. It was released in theaters on May 31, 2013.
Dorcas Wright "Dede" Gardner is an American film producer. She was president since the founding of Plan B Entertainment and currently serving as Co-President with Jeremy Kleiner since 2013. She is a two-time Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight, the first woman to win two Oscars for Best Picture. Her films Selma, The Tree of Life, The Big Short,Vice, Minari and Women Talking were additionally nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Christopher Denham is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is perhaps best known for supporting roles in Shutter Island, Argo, Being the Ricardos and his role in the Sundance Film Festival cult phenomenon, Sound of My Voice, as well as the television series Billions, Shining Girls, opposite Elisabeth Moss and Amazon Prime's Utopia, created by Gillian Flynn.
I Origins is a 2014 American science fiction romantic drama film written and directed by Mike Cahill. The independent production premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014. It is distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and opened in limited release on July 18, 2014. It won the Best Feature Length Film Award at the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya on October 11, 2014.
Jeremy Kleiner is an American film producer. He and his fellow producers won two Academy Awards for Best Picture for the 2013 film 12 Years a Slave and the 2016 film Moonlight. Since 2013 he has served as the Co-President of Plan B Entertainment serving with Dede Gardner.
Rachel Morrison is an American cinematographer and director. For her work on Mudbound (2017), Morrison earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, making her the first woman ever nominated in that category. She has twice worked with director Ryan Coogler, working on the films Fruitvale Station (2013) and Black Panther (2018).
The OA is an American mystery drama television series with science fiction, supernatural, and fantasy elements. The OA debuted on Netflix on December 16, 2016. Created and executive produced by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the series is their third collaboration. The series consists of two seasons of eight episodes each, nearly all directed by Batmanglij, and is produced by Plan B Entertainment and Anonymous Content. In the series, Marling stars as a young woman named Prairie Johnson who resurfaces after having been missing for seven years. Prairie now calls herself "the OA" and can see, despite having been blind before her disappearance.
William H. Slaughter is an American film and television actor, best known for his roles in The Big Short, The Magnificent Seven, The Campaign, Netflix's Mindhunter, Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches, and Marvel's Cloak & Dagger. He starred in films such as Mysterious Circumstance, which won the "Best Picture" award at the Los Angeles Film Awards (2022).
Maïmouna Doucouré is a French filmmaker. She made her feature film directorial debut with Cuties in 2020, which became controversial following the film's international release on Netflix. On 8 March 2019 coinciding with the International Women's Day, she received the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women from the Academy Women's Initiative.
Michael Sugar is an American film and television producer and principal at Sugar23, best known for producing Spotlight, 13 Reasons Why, Maniac and The Knick.
The 2022 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20 to 30, 2022. Due to COVID-19 pandemic protocol, it was initially intended to be an in-person/virtual hybrid festival, but on January 5, 2022, it was announced that the in-person components would be scrapped in favor of a wholly virtual festival due to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 9, 2021.
A Murder at the End of the World is an American psychological thriller drama television miniseries created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij for FX on Hulu. It stars Emma Corrin as an amateur detective who attempts to solve a murder at an isolated Arctic retreat in Iceland. The supporting cast includes Brit Marling, Clive Owen and Harris Dickinson.
"Chapter 1: Homme Fatale" is the series premiere of the American psychological thriller drama television miniseries A Murder at the End of the World. The episode was co-written by series creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, and directed by Marling. In the United States, it premiered on Hulu on November 14, 2023, alongside the second episode. Internationally, the episode was released on Disney+, while in Latin America it was released on Star+.
Both brothers are gay, a realization that Mr. [Zal] Batmanglij said he found challenging and liberating...
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
