Sareen Hairabedian is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based between the U.S., Armenia and Jordan. She is the founder of HAI Creative, a production company that collaborates with artists and humanitarian organizations across continents. Through her intimate observational shooting style, she captures the untold stories of underrepresented communities. Her subjects range from a modern dancer re-indigenizing his art while learning about his native Hawaiian culture, to Indian women facing extreme challenges of maternal health in Uttar Pradesh, to a rapper’s paradox of the immigrant experience in New York, to America’s most vulnerable, navigating life through the pandemic. Hairabedian’s directorial debut, We Are Not Done Yet, is a 40-minute HBO documentary about U.S. veterans grappling with PTSD who use art and poetry to heal. It was acclaimed Best Documentary at The G.I. Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the International Documentary Association 2018 Awards. Sareen was recognized by DC’s Office of Cable Television, Film, Music, and Entertainment (OCTFME) as the Filmmaker of the Month. Since 2018, Sareen has been working on her first feature documentary, My Sweet Land, based in Artsakh (Sheffield DocFest, 2024). The film received three nominations at the 2024 International Documentary Association Awards, won the Jury Prize, Audience Award, and the International Critics’ Award (FIPRESCI Prize) at the Amman International Film Festival, and was Jordan’s Official Submission to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film. It played in over 20 festivals worldwide and continues to have a wide reach with its impact campaign. It was supported by ITVS, ARTE, International Documentary Association (IDA), Arab Film for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Jordan Film Fund, AGBU, and others. Sareen was a DOC NYC x VC Storytelling Incubator fellow.

Email
sareen@hai-creative.com