Donna Hadjikhani

Donna Hadjikhani (May 22, 1973) is an Iranian American interior designer and social justice activist based in Los Angeles, California. She collaborated with director Matthew Solomon on the films Reimagining Safety (2023) and Seeds for Liberation (2026) as an executive producer.

Early life and education

Donna Hadjikhani was born and raised in West Hollywood, California. Her father was a magician, prompting her lifelong interest in daily-living amongst practical magic. From childhood, she was taught to treat magic with respect, further inspiring her career as a magic instructor.

She attended John Burroughs Junior High School in Los Angeles where she met lifelong friend Matthew Solomon. She then went to Fair Fax High School with Solomon. Hadjikhani then went on to earn her Bachelor's Degree in Art History and the Visual Arts at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She later traveled to New Zealand where she lived for eight years. There, she attended the University of Auckland, earning her Master's Degree in Arts Management. She also has certification from The Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training and is a certified Life Coach and Life Guide.

Films

Hadjikhani is the executive producer of two documentaries on social change. She began with Reimagining Safety (2023), a feature-length documentary by award-winning director Matthew Solomon, a childhood friend of Hadjikhani. Inspired by an early cut Solomon showed her, she invested resources in order to ensure the film was seen by as many people as possible. Originally, the film was only for Solomon's Master's Degree thesis project, but Hadjikhani encouraged him to share it with more people. This documentary covers defunding the police as well as the 2020 protests following George Floyd's death.

The second film Hadjikhani served as an executive producer for was Seeds for Liberation (2026). This film covered the Free Palestine movement. After seeing firsthand what the conditions were like in Gaza and the West Bank as a 20-year-old college student in 1993 during the First Intifada, Hadjikhani was propelled to collaborate on this film.