Leaving California: The Untold Story (2023)

Leaving California: The Untold Story is a feature-length documentary that portrays the growing challenges of living in California, causing an unprecedented mass exodus. Siyamak Khorrami, television host of California Insider and editor of The Epoch Times Southern California, takes viewers on an intimate journey of love, loss, tragedy, and hope as California residents face the prospect of leaving their beloved state. About 700,000 people moved out of the state within the last two years.

Khorrami provides a unique and personal lens as he explores such issues as crime, education, housing, cost of living, wildfire, homelessness, and more. Having left his home in Iran with his family when he was 16 years old to live in Mexico City for two years, Khorrami was drawn to the freedom, opportunity and beauty of the Golden State. He got his degree in Finance at the University of San Diego and was promptly recruited to help build a contract research company in China. However, as he experienced the culture of business under the Chinese Communist Party he decided to come back to California where his entrepreneurial spirit was embraced and allowed to thrive. Unfortunately, the state began to change.

As Khorrami talks with several notable Californians including Former Democratic Majority Leader of the California State Senate Gloria Romero, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, former San Francisco County Supervisor Tony Hall, former mayor of Costa Mesa Jim Righeimer, author and Officer Deon Joseph, Director of Race and Equity, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) Gabriela Sandoval, Pulitzer Prize winning-journalist Rick Reiff, famous historian and professor Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, he pulls back the curtain on trends and policies being imposed on the state.