Zahavi Sanjavi was born in 1967 in Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq. In 1975 he sought asylum in Iran along with his family, as a result of the war which broke out in Iraqi Kurdistan. Since 1990 he has lived in Sweden. Zahavi pursued his studies in the field of scriptwriting and filmmaking at the All-Russian State University of Cinematography in Moscow. Over the next nine years, he worked for TV in Iraqi Kurdistan. For the last two years, Zahavi has been working in Sweden on his documentary and feature films as director, scriptwriter, and producer.
