The Lesson - crew
MANINDER SAINI - director and editor
Maninder Saini began directing for the theatre. She was invited as ‘emerging director’ to the Here Theatre Director’s Festival, and featured as new director for a season at The American Theatre for Actors. She co-founded and directed four seasons of the all ‘new works’ theatre company DreamWeaver Productions, reviewed in BackStage as “impressive” and “innovative”. Working behind the camera, she has been the camera technician for the theatre company Blue Man Group, television shows Arrested Development and My Boys, movies including Black Dawn and Simon Says. She has spoken on panels for IATSE and Women in Film and Television. The Lesson is her first short film.
IRIN EVERS - producer Irin Evers has produced 6 films and worked on 20 other film and TV projects. He has directed 4 films which have won awards such as: 2nd Place at 2006 ZoieFest and a Platinum Remi (top award) at 2005 WorldFest Houston. His films have also screened at numerous festivals, including the Waterfront Film Festival. Irin’s feature scripts have placed in 9 major screenplay contests such as: Top 15% for the 2007 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and a Semifinalist for the 2007 Cinequest Screenplay Competition. He was a script reader at Andrew Lauren Productions in New York City from February 2005 to May 2007. Irin can be reached at neuroticboy(at)earthlink.net and his website is www.neuroticboyproductions.com. Irin's Resume.
KIRAN KAUR SAINI - writer
Kiran Kaur Saini grew up acting in theatre and writing poetry and plays. She published short stories during college, and her fiction was awarded the Henfield Prize, Story Magazine's College Short Fiction Award, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Joyce Carol Oates. Kiran has received grant support from the North Carolina Council of the Arts and was an artist-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA. Her plays have been produced in New York and New Orleans, and she has been a quarterfinalist in the Chesterfield Film Writers' Competition. The Lesson is Kiran's first produced work for film. www.kirankaursaini.com
DENISE BAILIE - director of photography
www.dbailie.com
LUCIA ROSALES - production design
ELIZABETH MUXI - costume design
MARK LANZ WEISER - original score
Before moving to Southern California to pursue a career in writing music for film and television, Mark Lanz Weiser had established himself on the east coast as a highly successful composer of concert and theater music, wining national awards, including the NATS National Art Song Award, fellowships at both the Yaddo Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and multiple commissions from major institutions including the Bank of America, the Capitol Quartet, the New Horizons Chamber Ensemble, and the American Guild of Organists among others. He has been praised by critics, including Joe McLellan of the Washington Post who, after hearing one of Mark Weiser's compositions, described Weiser as a "brilliantly expressive composer on the threshold of what promises to be a spectacular career." His music has been performed internationally and has been published by Boosey & Hawkes. www.marklanzweiser.com
UGO DEROUARD - sound design
www.ugosound.com
