Essy Niknejad was born on 22 June 1960, in Tehran.

He was 13 years old when he met the Swedish filmmaker, 'Ingmar Bergman'. Since then, he has been inspired to make movies.

His desire and aspiration for writing, directing and producing movie started at very young age in his homeland.

He made several short and feature films before finished his college. Right after his graduation, in the midst of his country at war, he made five documentaries (1982-84).

One of his feature documentaries, "Barricade" (1983) made him a household name. Writing and directing feature film was his authenticity of life, "Bloody Rice" (1984) inspire by true story with political controversial subject matter traveled to the Tashkent Film Festival in USSR and received an Honorary Diploma, an award that garnered him attention internationally as Director amongst the independent film community.

As an aggressive and out speaking filmmaker, Essy Niknejad set out to make his new miniseries, about a divorced woman in world of ideology, "The Fall of Sahara", (1985), later on "The Fall of Sahara" was broadcast syndicated stateside on PBS in the US (1994).

His Immigration into the US in 1986, made him to continue his education. He went to the California institute of Arts, at Cal Arts and graduating with a Master Fine Arts, in Film & Television (1990), meanwhile he got a chance to direct a few segment of TV series (Eye on LA) for ABC and as result he got more TV episode to direct such as (Sighting) for Fox.

Essy Niknejad culminated his educational, enrolling at Wayne State University at Michigan State for his Ph.D. in Film & Television.

Essy Niknejad did set up his production company INPinc in Los Angeles (1997). He is a member of the Director's Guild of America and so many other professional organization and cultural institutions.

Filmography

Director

Laleh Drive (2022)
Where Is Home (1997)
Sightings (1991) (TV Series)
Payiz-e Sahra (1994) (TV Series)
Bloody Rice (1984)
Eye on L.A. (1980) (TV Series)