Rayka Zehtabchi is an Oscar winning Iranian-American director based in Los Angeles. 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.

 

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. 

 

Rayka’s Oscar winning short documentary, Period. End of Sentence. which can be seen on Netflix worldwide, is 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 organization The Pad Project to fight the stigma of menstruation and improve feminine hygiene worldwide. 

 

Recently, Rayka directed a branded documentary short, chronicling the advertising agency Publicis Seattle's journey to finding the Special Olympics their new logo design, and "Ours to Tell", commissioned by Planned Parenthood and We Testify to commemorate the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.