Mehrdad
Jafari Raad

Mehrdad Jafari Raad is an award-winning Toronto-based composer for film, television, games, and media. His screen credits include Achilles, an internationally acclaimed feature film co-produced by Unité de Production and Basis Berlin Filmproduktion, which premiered at TIFF; Above Suspicion, a Peacock Alley Entertainment docuseries for Crave; the TELUS Originals Light Through the Blindfold and Constant Battle, featured at Hot Docs; Hatch, produced by PK Studio Productions and featured at VIFF; and the upcoming feature The River Will Carry Us, supported by Telefilm Canada, Expo Pandemic, created through the Junge Akademie / Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Projects featuring his music have screened at TIFF, VIFF, Hot Docs, Berlinale, San Sebastián, and other international festivals, and have appeared on major platforms including CBC Gem, MUBI, Crave, Amazon, and Apple.
 

His screen music has received two Leo Award nominations and Best Original Score at the Cyrus Film Festival in Toronto. Internationally, he has received the ISFA Award for Best Original Score and Best Soundtrack at the 2026 Valdealgorfa International Short Film Festival in Spain, as well as a Best Original Score nomination at Officine Social Movie in Italy. He has also served as a juror for several screen-music awards, including the Canadian Screen Music Awards (CASMAs) on three occasions.

Mehrdad holds a DMA in Composition from the University of Toronto, and he is a member of SOCAN, the Screen Composers Guild of Canada, and the Canadian Music Centre. His work spans screen, concert, electronic, and interdisciplinary music. He is active in artistic communities in Canada and internationally, with a particular interest in collaborations across music, film, and visual art.