Emelie Mahdavian is an Emmy, Peabody, and Sundance Award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened at major venues including Telluride Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Centre Pompidou, Berlin Film Festival, and Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, garnering awards recognition, international press, and receiving international theatrical distribution. She was selected for DOCNYC “40 under 40” in 2020.

BITTERBRUSH is in release with Magnolia Pictures/Hulu. It was hailed as “sublime” by Indiewire, was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick, and Variety critic Tomris Laffly selected it as a “Top 10 film of 2022” alongside Tár and The Banshees of Inisherin.

She produced, wrote, and edited MIDNIGHT TRAVELER, which premiered at Sundance, won numerous international prizes, and was nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Documentary. She has also edited both fiction and documentary features that have screened at Toronto Film Festival, MoMA New Directors/New Voices, IDFA, Rotterdam, Busan, and more. Other editing credits include Sam Feder's HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY (Sundance 2025), Nan Chen's SINGING IN THE WILDERNESS (New Directors/New Voices, Rotterdam, Hot Docs 2021), and Amy Redford's ROOST (TIFF, IFC). She’s currently completing Abby Ellis’ TERMINAL with Sandbox/Little Monster Films.

Emelie directed the fiction short THE FOLKESTONE LADIES' EROTIC FICTION CLUB, written and produced by Sharon Burrell. The film is a proof of concept for a TV series, and will be completed in late 2025.

She is also completing a feature documentary, entitled PLANET A, about a women-led science team who are the last humans to set foot on the ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. The film was the result of a solo-filming expedition in winter 2022/2023, and has been supported by development funding from Sundance Sandbox Grant, Tangled Bank Studios, catapult film fund, and NSF/BAS.

She was formerly a professional dancer and is also developing a feature documentary on the creative process of visionary choreographer Alonzo King and Lines Ballet.

Also formerly a professor of film, she holds an M.Phil & Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis and a postgraduate degree in filmmaking from London Film School. She studied singing and acting at new England Conservatory of Music, Mountview Theatre School, and HB Studios.