ION MICHAEL FURJANIC
Workshop: Composing and Sound Design for Documentary
As one half of Force Theory Productions, Ion Michael Furjanic has made it a point to innovate with each successive project. In 2005, Force Theory sound designed and composed the film FAVELA RISING, which won 24 international film festivals and was short-listed for the Academy Awards. The team went on to score and sound design the film JESUS CAMP, which was nominated for an Academy Award. In late 2007, Force Theory added 7 songs to MANDA BALA, which won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Ion is a self-taught musician, an expert pro tools user and the inventor of the human piano.
KHALID MAJZOUB
Opening Night MC
Khalid Majzoub credits his for passion for film and acting to a formidable woman he fell in love with at the tender age of eleven…Meryl Streep. “Instantly that woman became my muse and I knew I wanted to be in the arts.”
He studied psychology and obtained a double major in communication arts with emphasis on film, drama and journalism from the Lebanese American University in Beirut. During college, he directed two documentaries and was involved in over fifty student productions. Becoming professionally involved in film and theatre, he assisted Jawad Al-Asadi in directing two of his most renowned plays and worked on several documentaries with Philip Bajjali and Anwar Saab. In London, he trained professionally at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). In 2007, Khalid wrote and presented the Muhur Awards Ceremony of the Dubai Film Festival. Currently Khalid is the senior V.O Artist and Copyright Manager for MBC Group Network. He also works as a contributing reporter for the arts, theatre and film sections of several local and regional publications.
Maestro Nader Mashayekhi
Chamber Orchestra Performance
Nader Mashayekhi, Jamshid Mashayekhi’s eldest son, is a composer and conductor of Tehran Symphony Orchestra (founded in 1937 as Iran’s main Symphony Orchestra). Mashayekhi studied music at Honarestan Aali Mosighi in Iran in 1976, and then moved to Austria where he continued his studies at University of Music in Vienna. He was music conductor of an Austrian new music ensemble named "Vienna 2001". Some of his works have been performed by international orchestras such as Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna (1998), Ensemble Zwischen Töne, Berlin (1997-98-99-2000), Klangforum Vienna (1992-95), Ensemble Work in Progress, Berlin (1993), Savarian Symphony Orchestra (1997) and Tehran Symphony Orchestra (1998-2000). The 2007 Vein modern festival was allocated to him and some of his works, such as Ishango Bones,” were performed there.
Shaahin Norouzi
Installation Artist
Shaahin Norouzi is an expressionist artist. The conceptualized nature and unpredictable order of his compositions give his work intriguing characteristics. Shahin Norouzi recently completed the largest painting in the Middle East in May 2008 in the UAE. His obsession with the human’s place in the universe and viewers’ reaction to an artwork can be traced in “I’m her.” His latest installation is the design for the opening night of
Documentary Voices:
Pulling Focus.
JAFAR PANAHI
Jafar Panahi is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran, Jafar Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami's film Through the Olive Trees (1994). Panahi's first feature film in 1995, entitled White Balloon, won a Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film, The Mirror, received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival. His most notable offering to date has been The Circle (2000), which criticized the treatment of women under Iran's Islamist regime and won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. Panahi also directed Crimson Gold in 2003, which brought him the Un Certain Regard Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Panahi's Offside was nominated for competition in the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, where he was awarded with the prestigious Silver Bear and the Jury Grand Prix, 2006.
SHADMEHR RASTIN
Class: Script to Screen
Born in Tehran in 1964, Shadmehr Rastin earned degrees in architecture form Tehran University and screenplay writing from Bagh Ferdows College. His screenplays for TV include, This Woman Doesn’t Speak, Offside, A Few Days Later, Zagro, and That Man Came. He also has directed several documentaries, including Chat, Building of Thought and Bigger than Big. He was the Executive Producer of the documentary series, Tehran and Youngsters. Rastin is a member of the Documentary Cinema Studies Group in Iran.
LILY SADEGHI
Roundtable: Cultural Diplomacy/ Media Interpretations
Lily Sadeghi is a Tehran-based broadcast journalist and television producer. Since 2005 she has been the Tehran Office Producer for the BBC. For a dozen years she was an interpreter, researcher, and location producer for international clients including the BBC, PBS, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. Sadeghi was a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2004; her BA is in English Literature. Earlier in her career she worked at Sadeghi Ltd, Dalma International Ltd., and Iran Radio and Television.
ROBERT SAFARIAN
Class: Script to Screen
A student of Cinema and Persian Literature at IRIB College in Tehran, Robert Safarian went on to author Analysis of Michaelangelo Antonioni’s L’Aventura and Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Shadow of a Doubt. He translated three books from English into Persian and has written numerous film reviews and articles on short films and documentary cinema in Iranian press. Within the past few years, he directed three documentaries, Inversion, Joft Shish and Tehran in Photographs. He teaches “Film Analysis” at Sureh Film School in Isfahan. He also served as a selection committee member at the Kish Documentary Film Festival and at the Tehran International Short Film Festival in 2003 and 2004.
DR. CYNTHIA P. SCHNEIDER
Roundtable: Cultural Diplomacy/ Media Interpretations
Dr. Cynthia P. Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, taught art history for twenty years at Georgetown before her tenure as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands (1998-2001). She now works in the field of cultural diplomacy, with a focus on relations with the global Muslim community. She leads the Arts and Culture Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Born in Pennsylvania, she earned a BA and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Harvard University, and is a recipient of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Order, the highest civilian award given by the Department of Defense. She is married with two children.
YAS
YAS is one of Iran’s most popular hip-hop artists known for his socially conscious lyrics and positive messages.
Referred to as the “Persian Tupac”, YAS is the first rapper to have been granted permission by the Iranian government to release his music to the general public. He has been listened to and downloaded by millions worldwide. Born in 1982, YAS was introduced to hip-hop by his father who would bring him music CD’s from his trips abroad. After the sudden death of his father at the age of 17, YAS was left with the responsibility of working and taking care of his entire household of six. He began to sing hip-hop as a means of self expression and communication with others going through personal pains and hardships.
Today, hip-hop and rap music is becoming the fastest growing genre of music in the Middle East, and for the youth of Iran, YAS is fast becoming the voice of his generation.
DR. FARIN ZAHEDI
Farin Zahedi received her Ph.D. in Comparative Drama from the University of Oslo, Norway. Her M.A. is in Drama from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her B.A. in Theatre Arts is from Tehran University. Zahedi currently teaches at Tehran University and holds the position of Chairperson of the Drama and Film Department. She has written many essays and presentations and published several books, such as the recent “Henrik Ibsen and Modern Iranian Drama” in 2006. Zahedi has been involved in dramatic and theatrical presentations in a variety of countries.
DEBRA ZIMMERMAN
The Marketplace for Nonfiction
Debra Zimmerman has been the Executive Director of Women Make Movies, the largest distributor of films by and about women in the world, since 1983. Recent releases of Women Make Movies include THE GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE CONGO by Lisa F. Jackson, winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, and Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi’s award winning SISTERS IN LAW, a 2008 Peabody Award recipient for most outstanding achievement in electronic media. She is in great demand around the world as a speaker on independent film distribution, marketing and financing as well as on women's film. Most recently she has moderated panels and given master classes at the Sundance Film Festival, MIPDOC and Reel Screen as well as film festivals in Greece, Uganda, Mexico and Italy.
JURORS
Nayla Al Khaja
Nayla Al Khaja is the founder and CEO of D-Seven FZ LLC, a marketing and design agency that offers full media campaign services and corporate branding services. Alternately, Nayla is also the founder of D-SEVEN motion pictures, previously known as Dessart Productions founded in 2002, a Dubai based production company which produces commercial material, independent documentaries and films. Nayla graduated from Dubai Women’s College with a degree in Mass Communications in 1999 and in 2005 graduated from Ryerson University in Canada with a Bachelor in Image Studies.
Mahboubeh Honarian
Listed under Filmmakers
Bahman Magsoudlou
Listed under Filmmakers
Khlaid Majzoub
Listed under Special Guests
Zeyba Rahman
In a public and private sector career spanning four continents, Zeyba Rahman uses the inventiveness of art and culture to inspire creative development and cohesion in global communities. Her current project, Illuminating Islam: Art and Ideas, which launches in New York in June 2009, includes a multidisciplinary cultural festival and conference. She is Chairwoman of World Music Institute in New York and has been the North American Director for The Fes Festival of World Sacred Music and its companion "Giving a Soul to Globalization" conference for over ten years. A frequent public speaker, Rahman hosts live performances and moderates panel discussions internationally and in the US. She has been the subject of two television profiles as a global cultural leader.
Danny Schecter
Listed under Filmmakers
Farin Zahedi
Listed under Special Guests
ALLY DERKS