Biography
Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa is a professor at the department of Cinema and Television Arts. She has been teaching cinema studies as well as film production courses.
Her areas of research are Middle Eastern cinema, Iranian cinema and women filmmakers.
She has published extensively on Iranian cinema. Her book on Abbas Kiarostami co-written with Jonathan Rosenbaum was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2003 (revised edition 2018)
She is an award-winning filmmaker who has made number of shorts including Saless Far From Home, A Tajik Woman, Jerry & Me as well as a feature documentary (A house is not a Home: Wright or Wrong.) Her current project is a documentary about Iranian New Wave Cinema.
She is the founder and the Artistic Advisor of the Annual Festival of Films From Iran at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago since 1989.
She has an MFA in film from the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a Diploma in film from London Film School.
Instructional Areas
Film Studies in the areas of international cinema, Iranian cinema, Middle Eastern Cinema, Women Cinema, Issues of Race, Gender and Identity in Cinema, History and Aesthetics of Documentary forms, Cinema and Poetry, and Experimental Cinema. Film production in the areas of Documentary Filmmaking, Cinematic Essay, Experimental Film production.
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Iranian cinema, American cinema and global culture. Poetry and Cinema.
Degrees
B.A., Business School of Business Administration 1973
M.F.A., Design & Studio Arts University of Illinois Chicago 1987