Onlook Films
On Look Films is grateful to have a dedicated team of professionals committed to realizing Voices and Faces of the Adhan: Cairo. Each of us at On Look Films has an unprecedented drive, enthusiasm, and commitment in our respective communities. We have always been interested in cultural issues that have a hold on the world at large. We have a love for humanity and an unshakeable dedication to cultural issues. As a reflection of our commitment to dialogue and understanding within cultural diversity, it should be noted that the structure of our team is a reflection of just that. Two of us are from the former Soviet Union, one from Brazil, another Iran, and another from Israel. As we continue to develop creatively, each of us remains keenly focused on transcending cultural barriers. All of us, as individuals, have created cross-cultural connections that have pierced boundaries inherent in the human condition. We believe uniting cultures can only occur when people put themselves on the line, past the fear that has been created by popular media.
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The filmmaker has (1) documentaries on ReelChanges which requires funds for completion.
BioGraphy
Anna Kipervaser is a Ukrainian-born Chicago artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Her work has been consistently shown in galleries and arts publications across the country since 2001, and she has been the recipient of numerous grant awards and residencies including the George Sugarman Foundation Grant, New York Studio Program Residency, the Bertha Langhorst Werner Award, and the Stephen H. Wilder Traveling Scholarship. Much of the inspiration for Anna’s creative endeavors stems from her fascination with cultural differences and parallels. Anna has traveled extensively and has created numerous bodies of socially relevant work. Her commitment to transforming the world through art is visible through the creative leadership she has taken on in curating numerous exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Denver. In 2002, Anna created Manual Productions, a mobile art gallery, and has since been organizing cross-platform exhibitions and creating community everywhere she goes. Through her work, Anna examines social, collective and individual identity. While she has worked in various mediums in her career, her experience in the Middle East has moved her to work with film as a tool for increasing awareness of social and cultural issues globally. She strongly believes that through dialogue, cultural misunderstanding can be subsided. Miguel Silveira is an award-winning independent Latino filmmaker from Brazil. His films have consistently been recognized at national and international film festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, as well as many others. His short film, Namibia, Brasil was picked up and broadcast by the notable Franco/German television channel ARTE. He has traveled the globe to countries such as the Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Spain, France, India, Bangladesh and others. Throughout his life, he has sought to expose himself both to the reality of his country as well as that of the countries visited, and that exposure has come to influence much of his work today. Miguel is currently filming the feature length documentary, Cannikins Wake, about three nuclear bombs that were detonated in Alaska in the early 1970’s and the terrifying repercussions those bombs continue to have on our world today. He is also concurrently directing Rooftop Wars, about kids raging war with each other on the rooftops of Pilsen, shooting this summer. He lives in Chicago where he is also a professor of film at Columbia College Chicago. www.pangeamediaproductions.com Rodion Ron Galperin is a Belarussian-born Chicago based designer. Rodion’s design background is in print media; he has worked with Dell, Macy’s, Sears, and other various clients on advertising campaigns throughout the United States. Outside of the high-profile corporate clients he has worked with, Rodion has created album art and Websites, and has been featured in numerous experimental design publications. He graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2007 and is currently working toward a BFA in Visual Communications at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago. He is enthusiastic about his venture into film, with which he would like to make a creative and social impact through his love of design and typography. Yoni Goldstein is an award winning Chicago based filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor whose work puts forward multi-sited interpretations of myth, conflict, and diaspora. Developing multiple variations on the documentary, Yoni has gone on to work on a number of socially critical film projects: from examining hybridized healing practices in the Northern Andes (La Curación) to diaristic journeys through post-revolution Lithuania (Cousin Kasyte) to windows of dialogue in the Palestinian/Jewish Diaspora in (Zeitouna). His films have circulated in numerous regional, national and international festivals, conferences, and showcases. In 2003, Yoni Goldstein opened Standing Point Films, an independent film and video production house. He and Meredith Zielke envision, design, and lead this organization from the ground up to develop independent and experimental media projects. Since its inception, Standing Point Films has produced and supported over thirty films and video projects and continues to operate as a successful documentary production company. Meredith Zielke is an award-winning independent filmmaker, cinematographer and audio producer. She has undertaken topics such as the effective process of dialogue in confronting the Israel/Palestine conflict (Zeitouna), prismatic notions of body in Ecuador (La Curación), nautical illustrations of Restless Leg Syndrome (Jib Halyard), alternatives in public education (Our School), urban compromise within Post-Fordist Detroit (Detroit: Ruin of a City), 'City of Big Shoulders'-Informed Couture (Chic Chicago: Chicago History Museum), Alaskan environmental research (Discovery Voyages), disembodiment and disregard amongst Pakistani refugees, and the dual perception of Asian-American women (Eyes without a Face). Her work has been selected for competition at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Bayou City Inspirational Film Festival, FIFEQ (Festival International du Film Ethnographique due Québec), Media City International Film Festival, C-Pop Gallery and Detroit's Fringe Festival. She has spoken and presented at ethnographic conferences hosted by Yale University, Université de Montréal and McGill College in Montreal, and has instructed both audio and video documentary courses at the Detroit Film Center, Mess Hall [Chicago], and in Loja, Ecuador. Dustin Majewski is a Columbia College graduate with a B.A. in film and video, with a specialization in post production faculties. He has worked as Production Artist at Columbia’s Frequency TV channel in motion graphics, special effects, audio design and editor for various television episodes. He has worked as editor and title designer for numerous short films, and was editor and provided motion graphics for Flash Frame, an interview reel of graduating Columbia College seniors for industry head hunters. Ryan “Catfish” Chindlund is a sound engineer and designer with over ten years’ experience designing, engineering and recording sound in the Chicago area. Catfish is currently sound engineer at Chicago House of Blues. He graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a B.A., with Honors, and a concentration in Live Sound Reinforcement. Throughout his time as a professional sound engineer Catfish has recorded numerous live events, studio projects, and has installed PA Systems throughout Chicago and its outlying areas. Ryan also continues to play in various musical projects as a percussionist and also as a multimedia sound art collage one-man-band. Ehsan Ghoreishi is an Iranian-born Chicago based filmmaker, director, sound designer, and musician. He is currently in the Film Program at Columbia College Chicago with a concentration in Directing and Post Production Sound Design for Film. He has also studied Music Composition, Photography, as well as Physics. His latest short film, (TAXI)^3, has been selected to enter the "Take 1" film competition at Columbia College. He is currently working as a sound designer for Usama Alshaibi's upcoming feature film Profane. Inspired by both of his countries, he partakes in cross cultural activities between Iran and the United States such as curating the "Samad Film Festival" which began in 2006. This festival is the first of its kind in the United States, featuring all experimental and independent short films produced in Iran. Ehsan is an avid musician, an accordionist and percussionist; he continues to study composition with the renowned Michael Gustav Miller and plays in the Balkan inspired brass band "Black Bear Combo" with whom he has performed in Chicago and various other cities from New York to New Orleans. In all aspects of Ehsan's works, whether musical, visual, or the combination of the two in film, both dimensions of his identity as Easterner and Westerner are present; they are in a perpetual tension for balance. Sandra Kofler is a journalist living in New York City. As a child of Eastern European immigrants, her experience straddling cultures both American and foreign has been life-long. Sandra began her career in journalism as an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working at the University newspaper as a photojournalist, an infographics designer and a reporter. Living in Moscow for one semester, she sharpened her Russian skills while interning at the city’s oldest independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, alongside her role model, late human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya. As a final project, she composed a thesis in Russian about the deteriorating state of mass communications and free speech in Russia, topics that have formed her perspective as a journalist. After earning a B.S. in print journalism in 2004, she moved to New York to be a reporter and researcher at local and national publications including Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, Spin Magazine and TV Guide. She is currently a freelance writer with a weekly full-page column, “Web Hot List” in TV Guide. Despite her entertainment industry expertise, she continues honing her photography skills and learning Romanian as part of her ongoing research on the Republic of Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, for a future book project. Originally from Kansas, Jeremy Johnson moved to Cincinnati in 1998, where he attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati majoring in Art History and Fine Arts. He specializes in ancient and early modern religious practices of Western and Eastern cultures. Much of his work incorporates historical mediums in modern context as a way of delivering cultural practices to modern viewers. Jeremy has had much experience curating exhibitions in Cincinnati as well as collaborating in several large scale theatrical productions and performance art productions related to cultural conflict. Currently, Jeremy is working on a long term project entitled Meddling With Nature which incorporates photography, sculpture, taxidermy, video, animation, and other media. Meddling with Nature is intended to educate viewers on medical practice and biological process through the use of visual art. This recent work has given Jeremy a new skill of translating visual information on a large scale and has provided him with the opportunity to incorporate his passion for connecting elements. Jeremy’s greatest artistic asset is developing pattern and lacing storyline in a consumable way, prompting the right questions and answers at the right time to promote a “self-discovery” in viewers. Anna Kipervaser
Miguel Silveira
Rodion Ron Galperin
Yoni Goldstein
Meredith Zielke
Dustin Majewski
Ryan "Catfish" Chindlund
Ehsan Ghoreishi
Sandra Kofler
Jeremy Johnson
