Piran Zarifian

Piran Zarifian was born on August 28th 1983 in Tehran, Iran. Being Jewish, Piran found it difficult to live in Iran, consequently, just before his 17th birthday in August 1999, he migrated to Vienna, Austria where he applied for a U.S Visa and about a year later he moved to reside in United States of America. Shortly after he moved to Los Angeles, Piran attended University High School in Los Angeles. In High School, Piran took a "History of Cinema" class sponsored by Santa Monica City College. It was then when his passion for movies first developed. Piran soon realized other subjects in his high school education were too inadequate for him; so he dropped out of high school at age of 19 and attended Santa Monica City College where he resumed his education in Film Studies. In College, Piran soon started looking around and found Santa Monica's Film Club to be the place where he fit right in. He collaborated with his fellow student and film club members and started working on short film projects as an editor. As he was learning the tools of the trade he started developing and writing his first project "Hallucinated Realities". Piran wrote, directed and edited his first movie with the help of his film club buddies and got it in the school's film festival. It was then when he realized making movies is what he wants to do for the rest of his life. Piran continued making films and in the subsequent semesters and he also became the president of SMC's Film Club. Progressively he became closer to his film professors who he learned all of his primary knowledge about movies and movie making. Piran really excelled in his classes in college, even Corsair, SMC's weekly newspaper, wrote an article on him as a student and leader of the Film Club. In 2006 Piran graduated from SMC and received his Associate of Arts in Film Studies. Simultaneously, Piran passed all the tests and received his GED. After SMC, in July of 2006, Piran transferred to Columbia College Hollywood where he continued his film education through their hands on program. Having made a couple of short films prior to film school, Piran knew his strength and weaknesses and used them to his advantage in knowing what he needs to learn and improve on. Piran made several short films and music videos, among them "Der Mann, Der Nichts Hat" (The Man Who Has Nothing), a World War II movie that was shot on black and white 16mm film. It was done in a limited time as a class assignment, with practically no budget, nonetheless it went on to win the "Best Project" in school's film festival. A year into the program, Piran started working on his thesis film. He often referred to it as "Project Miracle". Knowing it was going to be the biggest project he has ever made, Piran spent the next year and the half writing and developing his thesis film. By the end of the first year Piran had already reached senior status and had once again become the statue in all his classes. In his senior year, Piran paired up with classmates, Sara Hernandez (Producer) and Markus Lanxinger (cinematographer) to start pre-production on project miracle now known as "Eldad". Before even a single framed was shot, "Eldad" had already become the most anticipated and talked-about film in school. Putting the project together was no easy task. Piran spent 4 months in pre-production and planning until everything was ready and everyone was on-board. On May 8th 2008, the cameras started rolling on "Eldad". Piran financed the movie himself and hired state of the art technology. He was among the first students to shoot his project on the RED one camera. A week later the project was "in the can" and ready to be edited. The next 3 months were spent in the editing room day and night. In July of 2008, Piran received his Bachelor of Arts in Motion Picture and Television from Columbia College Hollywood after completing "Eldad".