Ziad H. Hamzeh

Ziad's body of work as a director, producer and writer has earned over fifty awards and honors. Presently Ziad is producing two films: The Sharpest Edge of Nature in Rwanda and the Tunisian film Am.Bi.Gu.I.Ty. Most recently Ziad served as an Executive producer on the Iranian film Forbidden Womanhood and produced the film The Island Of Forgiveness starring Claudia Cardinale. Both films are slotted for release in late 2021. Prior work include producing The Flower of Aleppo starring Hend Sabry and executive produced Dreams I Never Had starring Malcolm McDowell and Robin Givens. The Flower Of Aleppo was honored as Tunisia's entry into both the 2017 Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards. The Flower was chosen to be the opening night event at the prestigious Carthage Film Festival. Irrefutable Proof, a dramatic thriller Ziad directed and produced, swept the Beverly Hills Film Festival earning three of the fest's highest awards: the Golden Palm, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography. He received the Abu Dhabi Film Festival's Black Pearl Award for Best Producer for the film Always Brando, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Always Brando also received the Best Picture Award from the Alexandria Film Festival and the Jury Prize from the Algerian Film Festival. Ziad's documentary The Letter: An American Town and the Somali Invasion premiered at AFI film festival and was chosen as the opening film Amnesty International film festival. The Letter won numerous awards and accolades and was heralded as Critics Pick by New York Magazine. Woman, a documentary he shot on location in Syria, once again earned Ziad the Beverly Hills Film Festival's highest honor, the Golden Palm Award. ¡Henry O! garnered Best Documentary honors at the BHFF as well as the Best of Fest Award from the Breckenridge Film Festival and the Accolades Award for Excellence in Film. His critically acclaimed feature film Shadow Glories has been heralded as "Powerful and distinctive. A mature, accomplished work...strong, stylish and uncompromising" by Kevin Thomas, film critic for The Los Angeles Times. In July, 2019, Ziad had the release of his film Hail Mary, an animated and live-action football comedy. In Hollywood, Ziad created two extraordinary theaters: The Open Fist Theatre Company and The Egyptian Arena. As Artistic Director of the award-winning Open Fist Theatre, Ziad brought to the LA theatre community prestigious international playwrights such as Arrabel, Artue, Beckett, Brecht, Churchill, Gretzky, and Lorca. He directed and produced over sixty major stage productions, among them Roxy Ventola's After The Bomb, Brecht's Baal, Sam Shephard's True West, Arrabel's Car Cemetery, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant, Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carre, Nicholas Kazan's Blood Moon, Poor Murderer, The Architect And Empress Of Assyria, Cinders, Low Level Panic, and Dusa, Fish, Stas, And Vi. Ziad has mentored and empowered numerous artists such as Burr Steers (Charlie St. Cloud, 17 Again, Igby Goes Down), Tony Spiridakis (The Last Word, Queens Logic), Dalene Young (Cross Creek, Pale Rider Pale Horse, Little Darlings), and Juan Carlos Valdivia (Southern District, Juno And The Pink Whale, American Visa). They found a haven for their creative powers when joining Ziad at The Open Fist Theatre. Professor Ziad teaches advanced and graduate classes in filmmaking and photography at Lesley University. He earned an MFA in directing from California State University, Fullerton, an MA in writing and criticism from California State University,Los Angeles, and a BA in theatre from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Ziad is a member of the Producer's Guild of America serving on the diversity committee