Author / Ala Ebtekar

Bahman Kiarostami was born in Tehran in 1978, he started working as an assistant director in 1996. His films have focused on the political power of faith inside contemporary Iranian culture and eloquently explores the complex layers of religious significance in the Iranian controversial society…

Ahoo Najafian is a Ph.D. student in the Religious Studies department at Stanford. Her work examines cultural manifestations of religion with a focus on literature and visual arts…

Rasoul Najafian was born in 1951 in Tehran. He learned the theory and practice of music with Esmaeil Mehrtash and studied acting and directing for four years with Mostafa Oskouei. In 1974, his short film Papoli Jan won the first prize of the ABU Asian Film Festival…

Mohsen Namjoo is a songwriter, singer, music scholar and setar player (traditional Persian lute). His musical style weaves a mosaic, mixing Persian music and poetry, Western rock, blues, and jazz to create something that is uniquely his own…

Nasser Rahmaninejad, a foremost celebrated Iranian artist started his theatre career in 1959 in Iran. In response to the authoritarian cultural policies and harsh censorship of the Shah’s regime, he founded his alternative, independent theatre group, Mehr, in 1966…

Morshed Mostafa Sa’idi is among the last naqqals of his generation, and is actively involved in mentoring young storytellers who continue the tradition while adding their own style to the craft…

Parisa Simin-Mehr holds a BA in History and is a student of Persian Literature. She started her work in theater in 1995 and has been working on the Shahnameh and professional storytelling (naqali) since 2000 under the mentorship of Mostafa Sa’idi, one of the last remaining old-school storytellers of Iran…

Slavs and Tatars is a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. The collective’s work spans several media, disciplines, and a broad spectrum of cultural registers…

Mike “Bam” Tyau was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has been in connected with graffiti writing since 1983. He earned his BFA in graphic design at USF and the Academy of Art in San Francisco, California. Mikeʻs paintings reflect positive, colorful energy forces that reflect nature…

Raheleh “Minoosh” Zomorodinia is an Iranian-born educator and multimedia artist who employs photography, video, installations and performance to make visible for audiences her emotional and psychological reflections as seen in her mind’s eye and inspired by nature…