Biography
Karzan Mahmood is a Stockholm-based composer working in film, television, theatre and video games. He began playing music at a young age, performs several oriental instruments and toured internationally with a small ensemble early in his career before focusing on composition. He studied composition of art music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, graduating in 2013, and has been active as a film composer and conductor since 2010.
His film credits include the original score for The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024), directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, with whom he has developed a close working relationship; he also scored Rasoulof’s Destination: Origin (2025). Other film work includes Bullets (2023), Zero Nine (2021) and The Lawyer (2018). Television credits include Hamilton (2020). In gaming, he has contributed to Battlefield 1 (2016) and Insurgency: Sandstorm (2018–2023).
Mahmood received the SABAM Award for Best Young International Composer at the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent in 2010 and was nominated for Best Original Score – Independent Film (Foreign Language) at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards in 2024 for The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
