Hossein Martin Fazeli

'''Hossein Martin Fazeli has been an A-List director in North America for many years. He has been producing, directing, and writing fiction and non-fiction television and film for more than two decades and has extensive international experience, having worked on location in a dozen different countries.

His films have been broadcast around the world, including on CBC, BBC, ARTE, and Canal+, winning 37 international awards in the process. Throughout the years he has collaborated with organizations such as UNDP, European Commission, and Nonviolence International on a wide range of film and television projects, including national and regional campaigns, exploring issues such as human rights, women’s rights, and minority rights.

His 2007 production, “The Tale of Two Nazanins”, about a teenage girl imprisoned on death row in Iran, was broadcast on major international networks such as the BBC and CNN and is credited with igniting an international campaign that saved her life.

In 2008, Fazeli was chosen by the Sundance Institute to take part in their International Filmmakers Award. He has lectured around the world on the ever changing face of film production and has held workshops with students at various educational institutions such as SFU (Canada), SOAS (UK), Aarhus University (Denmark) and the European Film Academy. For more info, please visit: www.fazelifilms.com

Career
Fazeli was born in Shiraz, Iran. In 1984, he was compelled to leave Iran and spent four years in self-exile in Dubai before moving to Canada to pursue a degree in film production at Concordia University and Vancouver Film School. After graduating, he relocated to Europe, where he wrote and directed independent films. Fazeli passionately advocates for human and women's rights, themes that are central to all of his works. One of his films, Tricko, is included in the permanent collection of audio-visual works on tolerance at the Jewish Museum in Moscow, the largest Jewish museum globally. Currently, Fazeli is in the process of completing three human-rights related films, including PHOOLAN, his docu-drama on the life and legacy of India’s infamous Bandit Queen (for more information, please visit www.phoolandevimovie.com).

As a poet, Fazeli is recognized as one of the most influential and controversial Persian writers in the diaspora. He is the author of 6 books of poetry in Persian, all of which have been banned by the authorities in Iran. He writes under the pen-name “Naanaam” («نانام»).