A photo of Mahtab Rezayi, an Iranian filmmaker based in Austin, TX. Black and white portrait of a young woman with long wavy hair, wearing a checkered shirt, sitting outdoors with a blurred background, looking at the camera with a slight smile.

Mahtab Rezayi is an Iranian filmmaker working across narrative and documentary cinema. She began her filmmaking practice in Iran, where she studied Film Directing at the Art University of Tehran.

Her work explores intimate, character-driven stories shaped by displacement, social constraint, and interior emotional conflict. Her films frequently center on women navigating political, cultural, and unspoken personal pressures, focusing on the moments where private choices carry wider consequences.

Her documentary, Pretty, has screened internationally, including at the IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival and the International Folklore Film Festival, and earned a nomination at the Festival del Cinema di Cefalù and a Quarter-Finalist placement at the WideScreen Film & Music Video Festival. Her recent narrative shorts, Ideal Figures and The Mortal Mrs. Ericson, are currently on the festival circuit.

Currently an MFA candidate in Film Production at the University of Texas at Austin, she is developing her narrative work that examines memory, regret, and the psychological aftermath of migration.