Ala Mohseni

Ala Mohseni was born in Tehran, Iran. His career began in the theater and then advertising, in the early 1990s, before moving on to filmmaking in 2004 with his first film "The Life" about a pioneer of Iranian cinema. He later attended a masterclass workshop by the legendary Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, then a BBC documentary workshop by acclaimed journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari. Ala Mohseni's 2008 documentary "My City Pizza", about the huge popularity of pizza in the Iranian capital Tehran, was praised for its comedy and awarded in festivals around the world. The IDFA awarded Mohseni the Jan Vrijman Fund in 2009 for his project "Hidden Kisses" - a film he was unable to complete because of civil strife in Iran after the 2009 presidential election. He moved to California a year later and earned an MFA in Film at the California College of the Arts. His latest films are "Kiosk, A Generation Destroyed By Madness" and (co-directed by Maziar Bahari) "My Stealthy Freedom".