MOHAMMED ALI NAQVI (DIRECTOR/PRODUCER)
Mohammed Ali Naqvi (Mo) is an internationally celebrated filmmaker, whose work has won over forty prestigious awards and honors, including a Special Emmy, two Amnesty International Human Rights Awards, and a Grand Prix from the United Nations Association Festival. He has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, a Cinema Eye Honor, and the UNESCO-FELLINI Prize. He is also an alumnus of top festivals including Toronto, Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin, and Busan, and an American Film Institute and National Endowment of the Arts Fellow.
Mo’s non-fiction films have been called “explosive” and “chilling”, and have been described as having “jaw-dropping” and “unprecedented” access. His most recent documentary Among the Believers (Manjusha Films/Changeworx, PBS World), despite being described as “one of 2015’s most important films” was banned in its home country Pakistan. The film is an up-close and personal chronicle of ISIS supporter & Taliban ally Abdul Aziz Ghazi as he wages his jihad against the Pakistani state. Other credits include Pakistan’s Hidden Shame (Channel 4 UK, ABC Australia, NHK, SVT), a stark and disturbing look into the sexual abuse suffered by street children living in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan and Shabeena’s Quest (Al-Jazeera World), about a remarkable school principal, and her quest to bring education to young girls living in the shadows of the Taliban. Internationally acclaimed Shame (Paramount / Showtime Networks) profiles sexual violence survivor and international human rights icon Mukhtaran Mai. Terror’s Children (Discovery-Times) chronicles the lives of Afghan refugee children living in a post 9/11 Pakistan.
In addition, Mo has produced fiction feature films including Big River starring Jo Odagiri and Kavi Raz in production with renowned filmmaker Takeshi Kitano's production company Office Kitano, and I Will Avenge You Iago starring Giancarlo Esposito and Larry Pine. Recently he directed Happy Things in Sorrow Times, inspired by writer Tehmina Durrani’s book of the same name.
After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and theatre training at the renowned New York conservatory Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, Naqvi founded B.L.A.H Productions, an off-Broadway theatre company in New York, for which he produced, directed and acted in a number of plays. Originally from Karachi, Pakistan, Mohammed spends his time between Karachi and New York.
JARED IAN GOLDMAN (PRODUCER)
Jared Ian Goldman is a film producer who has already left his creative mark on the cinematic landscape, producing fresh stories with always-affecting emotional authenticity and often a great deal of humor. His most recent credits include Ingrid Goes West (Neon/Universal), a dark take on the perils of social media stardom starring Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen and O’Shea Jackson, Jr., and Wilson (Fox Searchlight), a neurosis-packed comedy that finds a middle-aged man reconnecting with his teenaged daughter directed by Craig Johnson and starring Woody Harrelson and Laura Dern; Jeff Nichols’ widely acclaimed Loving (Focus Features) and Little Boxes (Netflix) starring Melanie Lynskey and Nelsan Ellis. Goldman is also currently in post-production on two adaptations of American literary classics: Submission, a re-working of Francine Prose’s Blue Angel starring Stanley Tucci and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which will bring Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name to the big screen. He is also in pre-production on a new film with director Craig Johnson, Alex Strangelove, which is their third collaboration.
Goldman began his career at Miramax Films before moving to GreeneStreet Films where he worked on titles such as In the Bedroom and Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion. Additional past producing credits include The Skeleton Twins starring Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, Kill Your Darlings with Daniel Radcliffe, Rob Reiner’s And So It Goes starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton, Solitary Man starring Michael Douglas, The Wackness starring Ben Kingsley, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), and many others.
DAN COGAN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER)
Dan Cogan is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Impact Partners, a fund and advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change through film. Since its inception in 2007, Impact Partners has financed more than 80 films, including Otto Bell’s Eagle Huntress, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and will be distributed by Sony Pictures Classics in October 2016; The Cove, which won the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature; How to Survive A Plague, which was nominated for the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature; The Hunting Ground; The Queen of Versailles, which won the U.S. Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and Hell and Back Again, which won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize and Cinematography Awards at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature.
Cogan co-founded Gamechanger Films, which launched in September 2013. Gamechanger Films is the first for-profit film fund dedicated exclusively to financing narrative features directed by women. Gamechanger's first film, Land Ho!, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. Gamechanger’s films have premiered or screened at festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Los Angeles, Locarno, Toronto, and London; have been named on "best of the year" lists; and won numerous awards including a Film Independent Spirit Award.
Cogan received his B.A. from Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude, and attended the Film Division at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts. In 2014, he was awarded the Leading Light Award at DOC NYC alongside filmmakers Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker, as well as the America Abroad Media Award in Washington, D.C.
JENNY RASKIN (CO-PRODUCER)
Jenny is the Vice President for Development and Filmmaker Relations at Impact Partners, and is a documentary producer, director and executive producer. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and a master’s degree from the Culture and Media Program at New York University.
HEMAL TRIVEDI (EDITOR)
Hemal is a Mumbai and NYC based filmmaker/editor. Her work has won one Oscar, three Emmys and seven Emmy nominations, a nomination for MTV Movie Awards, nominations for Independent Spirits Awards and Cinema Eye Award. She has won over 30 other prestigious awards and honors. Her work has been showcased in film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, IDFA, Full Frame and AFI and venues including the United Nations and US Department of State. Her work has been broadcast on Netflix, HBO, PBS (Frontline and Independent Lens), YouTube Red, Channel 4 and several other broadcast venues. She has served as a speaker, panelist and judge for TEDx, Independent Film Week, the Emmys and other prestigious awarding bodies.
Her key credits include This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous (Editor, YouTube Red original); My Big Fat Bollywood Wedding (Producer/Director/Editor); Among the Believers (Producer/Director/Editor, PBS and Netflix); Outlawed in Pakistan (Editor, Emmy 2014, two Emmy nominations, PBS Frontline, Sundance); Saving Face (Editor, HBO/Channel 4); Shabeena’s Quest (Director/Editor, Witness, Al Jazeera); Flying on One Engine (Editor, SXSW, IDFA); Laughter (Editor, BBC); When the Drum is Beating (Editor, ITVS); and Beyond Mumbai (Director/Camera/Editor, OWN,). She has produced and edited over 50 award-winning shorts for Odyssey Networks.
CHRIS McCUE (EDITOR)
Chris McCue is an editor based in New York City and Cleveland. He had the privilege to work with Albert Maysles at Maysles Film, Inc., for six years, working in post production on vérité films such as Muhammad and Larry (2009, ESPN) and The Love We Make (2011, Showtime). He worked as Assistant Editor at Viceland on Black Market with Michael K. Williams, Black Market: Dispatches and Noisey.
HINA ALI (ASSOCIATE PRODUCER)
Hina Ali is an independent documentary filmmaker from Karachi, Pakistan. She has been working as a journalist and a filmmaker for 11 years. In her role, she partakes in film direction, scriptwriting, narrative crafting, and film editing. Her films have covered issues of religious extremism and violence, gender inequality, access to education and judicial system in Pakistan. She is a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow (2013) and Chevening/South Asia Journalism Fellowship (2017). Her credits include Among the Believers, Ho Yaqeen and 3 Bahadur. She has worked for SOC Films, PBS, BBC Media Action, Dawn News and Aaj News.