Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami  

Born in Tehran in 1973, Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami studied cinema and animation at Tehran Art University. She is the author of “Animated Documentary, a New Way to Express,” which is a product of her research on the role of animation in documentary film. She has directed six documentaries, including CYANOSIS (2007), PIGEON FANCIERS (2000), BORN 20 MINUTES LATE (2010), A LOUD SOILITUDE (2010), and GOING UP THE STAIRS (2011). Her latest film, SONITA (2015) won numerous awards including the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the IDFA Amsterdam Film Festival and both the Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary and the Audience Award for World Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

Ghaemmaghami thinks of filmmaking, particularly in the documentary world, as something that can never be seen as an objective act; she understands human stories as inherently subjective and personal, as filmmakers are always making artistic decisions during the process of filmmaking, therefore creating something new that has been influenced by their presence. Along this line, Ghaemmaghami gave the subject of SONITA money in order to escape her future as a teenage bride. Sonita went on to go to an American high school on scholarship. (03/19)