Author: Bijan Tehrani

Foreign Language chair Mark Johnson won the Best Picture Academy Award for Barry Levinson’s poignant 1988 drama Rain Man. It was one of several films Johnson made with Levinson during a 12 year span, and it won four Oscars, including one to Dustin Hoffman as Best Actor, and also captured a Golden Globe for Best Picture. Born in Maryland, Johnson spent 10 years of his youth in Spain. He earned his undergraduate degree in drama from the University of Virginia and his M.A. in Film Scholarship from the University of Iowa. From there, he moved to New York and entered…

Phil Donahue and the DONAHUE show have been honored with 20 Daytime Emmy Awards, including nine for Outstanding Host and a George Foster Peabody Broadcasting Journalism Award. Phil Donahue used the television talk show format he pioneered in 1967 to interview world leaders, celebrities, newsmakers and people from all walks of life. For over 29 years, DONAHUE examined human behavior, focused national debates on political and social issues and has provided a democratic forum for presidential candidates. As host of Donahue, Mr. Donahue has presided over nearly 7,000 one-hour daily shows, many on-location broadcasts and several historic broadcasts from Russia.For…

Joe Byron, the Director of Education for The Los Angeles Film School, is in his eighth year with the school. During his tenure with LAFS, Byron has held various titles including Associate Director of Education, Associate Dean of the LAFS Immersion Filmmaking Program, and Director of Technology.Byron joined The Los Angeles Film School in 1999 as Director of Technology, overseeing the acquisition of all portable filmmaking equipment. In addition to being a member of the creative committee that supervised the creation of the Immersion Filmmaking Program, he also taught the first class ever offered by the school.In 2001, Byron served…

During the final days of communism in Romania, two college roommates Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) are busy preparing for a night away. But rather than planning for a holiday, they are making arrangements for Gabita’s illegal abortion and unwittingly, both find themselves burrowing deep down a rabbit hole of unexpected revelations. Transpiring over the course of a single day, Mungiu’s film is a masterwork of modern filmmaking, by parts poignant and shocking. Winner of Cannes 2007 Palme d’Or and nominated for 4 European Film Awards including Best Picture and one of the standout hits of the Telluride,…

Dan Cox is an award-winning journalist who has worked for Reuters News Agency, Variety/Daily Variety, New York Post, CBS News, City News of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Business Journal. He has directed and produced theater in New York with the company Tyrannosaurus Rep. For about 10 seconds; he was a literary agent for Brode, Kurland, Webb & Uffner where he created an independent film division.Running With Arnold is a politically-charged documentary that tells the fascinating and humorous story of one of the most famous men of our time. From his childhood in post World War II Austria, through…

Lee Chang Dong, director of Secret Sunshine, graduated in 1980 with a degree in Korean Literature from Kyungpook National University in Daegu, where he spent much of his time in the theater, writing and directing plays. After a spell teaching Korean Language in high school, he established himself as a renowned novelist with his first novel Chonri in 1983. Later in his career, to the surprise of many, he turned to movie making.Lee did not study filmmaking before starting out. He penned two screenplays, Park Kwang-su’s To the Starry Island in 1993 and A Single Spark in 1995. After being…

Darryl Macdonald is Executive Director of the Palm Springs International Film Society, which produces both the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films. He is the co-founder of and has been the Executive and Artistic Director of The Seattle International Film Festival since its inception in 1975, where he served in that capacity until assuming the position of Executive Director of the Palm Springs International Film Society in October of 2003. Simultaneously, he served as the Artistic Director of the Palm Springs Film Festival (1989 -1993), the Hamptons Film Festival (1993 -1996) and…

Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969. She grew up in Tehran where she attended the Lycée Français (French high school). She then studied in Vienna before she relocated to France in 1994. In Paris, through fellow comic book artists, she was introduced into the Atelier des Vosges, an artist studio which gathered major, contemporary comic book artists. In her first graphic novel, Persepolis 1, published by L’Association in November 2000, Marjane told the story of the first ten years of her life until the overthrow of the Shah regime and the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war. In Persepolis, published in…

Vladek Juszkiewicz was born in Glogow, Poland. He graduated from the Szczecin Technical University with a degree in Engineering. While attending the University he became a member of The Szczecin Technical University Choir, serving as a President and manager of the group. His travels with the choir took him to Cuba, Canada, India, France, England, Ireland, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Thailand, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, The Philippines and United States where he visited the White House.When he moved to Warsaw he became the manager of the Polish international star singer Maryla Rodowicz. After immigrating to the United States he…

Diarah N’Daw-Spech was born and educated in France where she studied Spanish in high school and English at the university. Mrs. Spech has developed a 15-year long career as an educational administrator in the USA and is currently the Financial Director for the Center for Educational Outreach and Innovations at Teachers College, Columbia University. She holds a BA in economics from SUNY Albany and a MBA from Columbia University in Management and Marketing. In 1993, Mrs. Spech created with her husband the African Diaspora Film Festival (ADFF – www.NYADFF.org). The mission of ADFF is to expand the traditional views and…