Michael Younesi is an Iranian-American filmmaker, writer, and director based in Los Angeles. A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, he has spent over 15 years directing award-winning commercials and entertainment projects for major brands and studios, including Disney, Netflix, Samsung, and Mattel. He is the co-founder of Concrete Studios and SuperCinema, a new independent film studio focused on bold, original storytelling and theatrical distribution. His debut original narrative feature, Loose Ends, is a dark crime comedy inspired by the Persian-American community in which he grew up.
In this interview Michael discusses his journey from making childhood films with his brother to developing his first original narrative feature, a dark comedy set within Los Angeles’s Persian-American community. In this conversation, he reflects on the influence of Iranian and American cinema, his approach to working with actors, the importance of preparation and spontaneity, and the challenges of portraying immigrant life without falling into familiar stereotypes.
The conversation also explores his collaboration with Iranian artists, including actress Vishka Asayesh, and his ambitions to bring a distinctly Iranian-American story to a wider theatrical audience.
Bijan Tehrani: Tell me about your background, how you became interested in filmmaking, and the projects you’re working on now.
Michael Younesi: I’ve been making films since I was a child, mostly with my brother. We started by shooting short films and stop-motion animations with our toys. As we grew older, we became more serious about filmmaking, and eventually both attended USC film school. While I was there, we made a 20-minute short film about the Shah of Iran during his exile in Mexico, against the backdrop of the Revolution. Iranian subject matter has always interested me – as my parents are from Iran. My passion, though, extends across a wide spectrum of
international auteur cinema, from Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese to Abbas Kiarostami.
After film school, I moved fairly quickly into directing commercials. My brother and I started a commercial production company, and I spent roughly 15 years working in that field. I continued writing and directing narrative projects, but much of that work was on assignment, an extension of my commercial career. I directed a Netflix show and was hired to write a couple of children’s films, among other things. Those projects helped me develop my craft, but none fully represented my own artistic vision.
I was fortunate to make a living as a writer-director while continuing to learn. Then, last year, I finally shot my first original narrative feature, based on a screenplay I wrote myself. It’s an independent dark comedy, with some of the sensibility of the Coen brothers’ Fargo and The Big Lebowski, or a more contemporary film like Uncut Gems.
The central character is an Iranian-American personal injury attorney in Los Angeles, the kind of billboard lawyer whose advertisements you see everywhere. He’s in serious financial trouble when he encounters Armenian-Russian mobsters involved in insurance fraud. He sees an opportunity to make some quick money, but the situation quickly spirals out of control.
He has to balance the dangerous criminal world he’s entered, the law firm he’s trying to keep afloat, the police who are closing in on him, and his Iranian-American family. That family and cultural world are very personal to me because they’re drawn from the environment I grew up in. The film uses the language of a dark crime comedy, with influences from the Coen brothers, Quentin Tarantino, and Scorsese, to explore immigrant life in contemporary Los Angeles. Another interesting aspect of the film is how the production itself became a bridge between Iranian and American cinema. Vishka Asayesh, whom I’m sure you know, plays the lawyer’s wife. This is her first English-language role and her first role in an American film.
As we cast the film and assembled the crew, almost by accident, it became a meeting place for artists with very different backgrounds. Some had spent years working in Iranian cinema but had left Iran or found their careers interrupted. Others were American film professionals I had worked with in Hollywood. Together, they formed a remarkable team.
For example, one of our producers, Sepehr Mikaelian, had worked extensively with Bahman Ghobadi in Iran. This was one of his first experiences working on an American film. We also have the Iranian pop singer Morteza in the film, performing at a party near the end of the story. His previous film appearance dated back to 1976, and he has not been in on the big screen since the revolution.
Bijan Tehrani: I know Morteza very well personally.
Michael Younesi: That’s wonderful. These are the kinds of connections that made the production special. It brought together Hollywood professionals and Iranian artists living outside Iran. I’m very happy with the result. The picture edit is locked, and we’re working on the remaining post-production. I am also one of the founders of SuperCinema, a new independent film studio focused on bringing bold, original films to theatrical audiences. We are developing a major production campus in Burbank, and Loose Ends is planned as one of our first theatrical releases.
Bijan Tehrani: I’m especially attracted to the idea of approaching this world through comedy. I’ve long admired filmmakers who use humor and imagination to explore society, including Jacques Tati in France. Your story sounds fascinating, and I hope I’ll have an opportunity to see the film and write about it before its release.
I’m always interested in the different ways directors work with actors. Asghar Farhadi, for example, is known for lengthy rehearsals, sometimes lasting a month or more. Rodrigo García takes a different approach, placing great trust in his understanding of the actors and what they can bring to a scene once they’re on set. What is your own approach to directing actors?
Michael Younesi: My approach, both with actors and with filmmaking in general, is to prepare extensively and in great detail. That includes rehearsals, storyboards, and carefully planning the scenes. Some of that may come from my commercial background. I like to have everything meticulously worked out before filming begins. But the reason I prepare so thoroughly is that it gives me the freedom to depart from the plan once I’m on set.
There’s a particular energy that exists only when you’re actually shooting. The actors are in costume, the lights are up, you’re in the location, and everything suddenly comes together. You can’t fully anticipate that feeling. There’s a kind of magic that only becomes possible at that moment.
Personally, though, I would feel too anxious arriving on set without a clear plan and hoping to discover everything there. I need to visualize the film beforehand, rehearse the scenes, and develop a version of each moment that I’m already happy with. Then, when we start shooting, I can remain open to unexpected discoveries. You might have a beautiful shot that you’ve storyboarded down to the last detail. Then an actor takes two steps in an unexpected direction, the camera follows, and suddenly you discover something more beautiful than what you originally imagined. That actually happened to me on this film. I had planned a very specific shot, but when the actor moved away and the camera panned with him, the result was even better.
So yes, I rehearse, I prepare, and I draw my own storyboards. But all that preparation is ultimately about giving myself the confidence and freedom to capture something unexpected.
Bijan Tehrani: Hitchcock is a good example. He planned his films meticulously, often preparing detailed storyboards and determining the lenses, camera positions, and distances in advance. Of course, things can change when a filmmaker arrives on set. But that preparation provides a strong foundation. Think of Rope, which Hitchcock designed to create the impression of one continuous shot. A film like that would be impossible without extraordinary planning.
Michael Younesi: Absolutely, although I don’t think there’s one correct way to direct. I love filmmakers like Werner Herzog and David O. Russell, whose work often depends on a certain kind of creative chaos. They have the instinct, energy, and point of view to capture something extraordinary in that environment. They’re among my favorite directors, but that isn’t my own style.
My approach is probably closer to Hitchcock, Kubrick, or Scorsese. What sometimes gets overlooked when people discuss the meticulous planning of Hitchcock or Kubrick is that preparation doesn’t eliminate spontaneity. I suspect that even on their sets, unexpected moments could become the greatest rewards of all that planning.
If you already know the blocking and camera angles, you aren’t spending the shooting day trying to figure out the basic structure of the scene. When something changes, it becomes an evolution of your original plan rather than a substitute for having one.
Bijan Tehrani: I had an experience of my own that illustrates exactly that. Years ago, I made a film involving a man who collected costumes from theatrical productions in Iran. He was an eccentric figure who had developed an entire world of stories around those costumes. For the ending, I brought in a performer known for playing Siah, a traditional comic character in Iranian theater.
He was supposed to deliver a single line. But when the camera started rolling, he continued speaking for ten minutes. Later, Nasser Taqvaei, came to my editing room, and I showed him the footage. his reaction was immediate: “Don’t touch it. Don’t even cut it.” He felt that this unplanned moment was the best part of the film. That experience taught me that unexpected discoveries can be just as important in documentary filmmaking as in fiction.
There’s something else I particularly admire about your project. Many second-generation immigrant filmmakers seem to feel they have to make political or social dramas focused on suffering, exile, or the difficulties of life in Iran. There’s certainly a place for those films, but there are so many other stories to tell.
What interests me about your work is that you’re looking at the lives of Iranian Americans today. You’re telling a contemporary story without forcing it into a predetermined image of what an Iranian film is supposed to be. You can express social or even political ideas through comedy and character, rather than feeling obliged to make the kind of film that critics might expect.
Michael Younesi: I think that’s a very interesting point. Iranian cinema has an extraordinarily rich history, from filmmakers like Dariush Mehrjui to Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and on to Jafar Panahi and others working today. But Iranian diaspora cinema has been more uneven. There are certainly strong films, but a lot of the work hasn’t interested me personally. You live in Los Angeles, so you know how distinctive the Persian-American community here is. It’s large, colorful, complicated, and fascinating. It’s also the world I grew up in. Yet I had rarely seen a film that captured it in a way that felt genuinely authentic, particularly its humor.
There’s a sense of displacement and trauma in almost any immigrant or exile community, especially when people have been uprooted from their homeland and suddenly find themselves building a life somewhere else. But that’s only part of the experience. There’s also tremendous humor, contradiction, ambition, and energy. It’s a very cinematic world. I haven’t connected with much of the Persian-American comedy I’ve seen. Too often, the characters feel exaggerated or the humor relies on familiar stereotypes. I didn’t want to make that kind of film.
We knew the cinematic style we were aiming for: something with the look and feel of a 1990s Coen brothers movie, with a touch of Scorsese’s crime world. But the biggest question was how to make the characters and their environment believable. How could we create something funny without making it broad, artificial, or stereotypical?
Casting became crucial. Connecting with Sepehr Mikaelian helped us reach artists with deep experience in Iranian cinema, including some who had come to the United States more recently, particularly following the events surrounding Mahsa Amini.
Vishka Asayesh is a perfect example. We needed an actress capable of playing an Iranian-American woman with real emotional depth. That’s not an easy role to cast. Some performers might have to imitate the accent or mannerisms without really understanding the culture. Vishka is an extraordinary dramatic actress. Although she hasn’t lived in America as long as the character has, she brings a truth and emotional intelligence to the role that goes far beyond imitation.
That search for authenticity affected everything: the actors, locations, costumes, and details of daily life. We didn’t want the film to look like an outsider’s recreation of immigrant culture. We wanted it to feel lived-in and real.
One of the most encouraging responses we’ve had to the screenplay and early cuts is that people find the world both entertaining and unfamiliar. They recognize that they’re seeing a community and a set of characters they haven’t often encountered on screen in quite this way. Achieving that was one of the greatest challenges of the project, but also one of its most rewarding aspects.
Bijan Tehrani: What are your plans for distributing the film? I believe a story like this could appeal to a very broad audience, not only to the Iranian-American community. Do you expect a substantial theatrical release?
Michael Younesi: Absolutely. One comparison I like to make is the Netflix series Beef. It centers on Korean-American characters, but it isn’t a show exclusively for Korean audiences. It’s an American story that people from many different backgrounds can connect with. That’s how I see our film. The central characters are Persian American, but the story also includes Black culture, Mexicans, Armenians, and Russian characters. It reflects the diversity of Los Angeles. The film grows out of a particular community, but it’s intended for everyone. We are planning a theatrical release through SuperCinema, in major markets across the country, including Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Our plan is to reach audiences well beyond the Iranian-American community and build momentum through bold, unconventional marketing. The dream would be something like My Big Fat Greek Wedding: an independent comedy rooted in a particular cultural community that finds an audience far beyond it. Of course, you never know how people will respond until the film reaches theaters. But we believe it has that
potential, and a theatrical release is central to our plans.
