Bios

Director’s Bio
Using an irreverent mixture of fiction, documentary and experimental genres, Shelly Silver’s work in film, video, installation and photography is funny, poetic and formally beautiful, seducing the viewer into pondering such difficult issues as the cracks in our most common assumptions, the impossibility of a shared language, and the ambivalent and yet overwhelming need to belong—to a family, a nation, a gender, an ideology. Silver’s art has been exhibited and broadcast widely throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Screenings and installations have been mounted by venues such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the International Center of Photography in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Yokohama Museum, the Pompidou Center, the Kyoto Museum, the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Museo Reina Sofia, and the London, Singapore, New York, Moscow, and Berlin film festivals. Her work has been broadcast on BBC/England, PBS/USA, Arte, Planete/Europe, RTE/Ireland, SWR/Germany, and Atenor/Spain. Silver’s numerous fellowships and grants include awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the DAAD, the Jerome Foundation, the Japan Foundation and Anonymous was a Woman. She is based in New York where she is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts in the School of the Arts, Columbia University.

Producer’s Bio
Karin Chien is an independent film producer based in New York City. Chien has produced seven feature films, including The Exploding Girl, The Motel and Robot Stories. Karin is currently in production in Beirut on Circumstance and in post-production on Untitled P. Benoit Project. She is the president of dGenerate Films which distributes the best of contemporary Chinese independent cinema. She was curator and producer of the Chinatown Film Project, an inaugural film exhibition for the Museum of Chinese in America. Karin Chien is the 2010 recipient of the Piaget Producers Independent Spirit Award.

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