Jury

Gelareh Kiazand

A freelance director of photography, director, and producer. Her extensive work, including documentaries in diverse locations, has earned her three News & Doc Emmy awards and a Peabody. Notably, she became Iran’s first female DP for a fiction feature after the 1979 revolution.

Hamidreza Nassiri

An independent media scholar, filmmaker, and digital media artist, holds a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation, Iranian Cinema in the Digital Era, explores how digital technologies impact local and global power in film and media industries. He has taught Media Production and Studies at NYU, UW-Madison, and Fordham University. His publications on Iranian cinema, media pedagogy, and labor rights appear in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Fine Arts: Performing Arts and Music. Hamidreza’s short films, including Daylight News(2013) and Immortal (2018), have screened at festivals and venues like the Millennium Film Workshop. Founder of the Wisconsin Iranian Film Festival, he currently serves as Exhibition Coordinator for the Radical Film Network.