Author: Bijan Tehrani

In addition to writing and directing Verboten, Martin Keegan plays Mike Gorman, the fierce single father of a troubled teenager. Keegan has just signed to write the screenplay adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. With New York Times Washington D.C. bureau chief Carl Hulse, Keegan is also co-writing Secret Service, the true story of William Wood, a James Bond-like character who created the Secret Service under President Lincoln. His film has been won Best Dramatic Film at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. Keegan hosts the pop culture talk show Hollywood Babble-On at social broadcasting site NowLive.com, where he…

Stuart Litman joined Film Movement in 2003 as its Company CEO. Since his arrival, Film Movement has focused on new distribution channels including securing new relationships with television, video on demand, home video partners such as Amazon/Createspace, Netflix rental and electronic delivery, Blockbuster, and also Continental Airlines Inflight Entertainment. Meghan Wurtz is Vice President of Business Development at Film Movement. Ms. Wurtz Prior to joining Film Movement, she worked for European Film Promotion (EFP), an initiative aimed at raising industry awareness of European film and assisting in the further distribution and promotion of European films in North America, where she…

Sandra Hebron is the Artistic Director, BFI Film Festivals, responsible for the Times BFI London Film Festival and the London Lesbian and Gay Festival, two of Europe’s leading public film festivals. This is her fourth year as Artistic Director of the Times BFI London Film Festival.She began her working life in academia, researching in the fields of sociology and cultural studies at Sheffield Hallam University, and published books on women’s magazines and women’s leisure. She has worked in independent cinema for over fifteen years, including a time as the Film and Photography Development officer at Yorkshire and Humberside Arts. Her…

Cinema Without Borders: Please tell us about the motivations behind arranging the Vancouver Pan-African Film & Arts Festival and your involvement with it.Ms. U. Ebony Johnson (Founder/Executive Director of Vancouver Pan-African Film Festival): Thank you for the opportunity of sharing some background on the inaugural Vancouver Pan African Film & Arts Festival (VPAFF) 2007. The story is a fascinating one, born from an honest desire to spotlight African/”Black” contributions in society.British Columbia as a colony was established by “Black” people (see Canadian Heritage website) and the founding father of the Province, Sir James Douglas was a bi-racial Caribbean brother but…

Born and raised in the United States, Ramin Bahrani studied film at Columbia University in New York City before moving to his parents’ homeland of Iran, where he lived for three years. After spending time in Paris, he eventually returned to the United States to begin work on his first feature film, MAN PUSH CART (2005). The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival (2005) and was selected for the Sundance Film Festival (2006) before being released theatrically to critical acclaim. His second feature film, CHOP SHOP (2007) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Bahrani is currently finishing his third…

Cynthia Wade is a NYC-based documentary filmmaker. Her short documentary “Freeheld” won a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and seven other film awards in major cities such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle and Denver. Wade’s five-time award winning HBO documentary “Shelter Dogs” was broadcast in seven countries. Wade directed the 1999 Cinemax Reel Life documentary “Grist For The Mill”, which The Hollywood Reporter called “a delight…full of quirky moments and clever humor” and Variety called “a jewel … extremely comical.” She was co-producer and principal verite cinematographer for the 1998 PBS documentary “Taken In:…

Written by Drew Pillsbury and Directed by Alan White, the film also has performances from Linda Hamilton, Tess Harper and Jake Busey. BROKEN, produced by Jerry Wayne and Brian Etting and financed by Jerry Wayne’s Walk on the Beach Productions, reveals an episode in the life of Hope, a young transplant to Los Angeles from the Midwest. We learn that after a steady stream of rejection and the sinking realization that her singing career is fast going nowhere, Hope finds solace in the arms of Will; a handsome, charming bad boy. They fall madly in love and quickly become each…

Mikel Olaciregui, Director of San Sebastian International Film Festival is Born in Pasaia (Gipuzkoa) in 1956. A film enthusiast by vocation, Mikel Olaciregui has been professionally related to the audio-visual medium since 1986 when he started working as a producer with the Basque ETB channel. While with the ETB he held different positions within the Production Department, until, in 1988, he was appointed Delegate Director at the newly opened Miramón Production Centre. He was the ETB Programme Manager from 1990. During this time he increased his relationship with the film world, joining the Commission for the granting of Basque Government…

Javad is dead. He passionately loved Hitchcock, Mango and strawberry ice cream. Javad lived his abridged life through other people. This should explain his unending appetite for watching movies and counting other people’s money. He was a bank clerk, an Iranian communist wannabe that ended up as a Bank of America employee! I am sure Lenin would not have called him a “comrade”. Javad was a shadow. He will not be remembered by anybody. He never suffered from what others call disaster or pain. When he discovered his wife’s farewell letter, in which she explained that she was dumping him…

Michaela Kezele was born in Munich. Her Mother is Serbian, her father Croatian. She was raised by her grandparents in Dubrovnik. As a result of the war, she came back to Munich in 1991. After graduating from high-school, she studied for two years at the music academy and graduated in 1997 with a diploma in acting.. After graduation, she worked in Germany and Croatia as an actress. Now, she is a student at the film & television academy in Munich. Milan is Michaela’s third short film made during her film school years. Milan takes place during the 1999 Nato air-raids…