Robin Saban is the Founder/President of the International Student Film Festival Hollywood.
Mr. Saban began his career in the entertainment industry as a writer and director in Montreal, Canada. He wrote and directed several plays for live theatre while living in Montreal from 1992 to 1996. In Los Angeles since 1998, Mr. Saban worked in the entertainment industry as a film editor and project developer, and co-wrote the film script titled “29 Palms”.

Mr. Saban studied film and theater at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (1991). In 1997, he studied digital film and video editing software “AVID” at Video Symphony in Burbank, California.

The International Student Film Festival Hollywood which Mr. Saban founded, offers student filmmakers from all over the world a unique opportunity to gain the recognition of film industry leaders, creating career development opportunities in their home countries as well as in the United States.

Website: www.isffhollywood.org

He was born in Izmir in 1947. He graduated from University of Ankara, Faculty of Language and Geography. He has three diplomas from department of Theatre; department of Classis Roman Language and Department of History of Greek Literature.

Later, he attended a PH. D. Program on Children Theatre. He worked for long years at Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) where he started as a producer and script writer then became Ankara Television Director. In 1978, he prepared and brought to life international 23rd April Children Festival. And for 12 years he was the president of the organization committee for the festival. He also represented TRT at European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

During his career, he wrote may children plays as well as scripts for television and cinema.

AN ODD MAN by Necef Ugurlu

Refik Erduran is one of our controversial writers. That is to say, he goes against the grain and triggers strife.

Our man in the street knows him above all as Nazim Hikmet’s rescuer and as the first Turk to try Viagra (on a journalistic mission). You’d think he had done little else.

He was in the Korean War. He had adventures in Beyrouth, Vienna, Budapest. Then he went to war again in Bosnia.

His strangest trait is boredom with success. He founded a firm that ushered in a new era in book and magazine publishing. It was also extraordinarily lucrative. He got bored and quit. He was one of our most influential newspaper columnists. Got bored and quit. He started a production company that was filling the largest theatre halls. Got bored and quit.

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Tuncer CÜCENOĞLU was born in l944 in Çorum/Turkey.

He is educated in theatre and playwrighting at Ankara University. He is a
member of the State Theatres script selecting board, Turkish Writers Union and International Pen Club Turkish center. He is MSM Private Conservatory dramatic playwrighting professor. “Papirüs Publishing House” theatre section director.

Scripts:
Chaos, The Teacher, Poor Women, Dead End, The File, Biga – 1920, The Gamblers, Helicopter, Kemal The Thunder, Matrushka, The Visitor, The Hat, The Painter, Neyzen, Red River, The Avalanche, Theatremen, Sabahattin Ali, Green Night, If I Were a Poor Man, Che Guevara.

Awards:
Tobav(2),Turkish Women Association (l), Ankara Art Society (2), Abdi Ipekçi (l), Ismet Kuntay (l) , Avni Dilligil (2), ITI (l), Kasaid (l), Lions (2), Cultural Ministry (l) and 2 international (Yugoslavia and Holland).

His plays are translated into Russian, English, German, Farsian, French, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, Swedish, Georgian, Urdu, Japanese, Romanian, Azerian, Tatarian, Polish, Chuvash, Serbian, Spanish, Arabic.

Some of the plays (The Avalanche, The Hat, The Painter, Poor Women, Red River, The File, Helicopter, The Visitor, Dead End and Matruskha) are performed or in the repertory of the companies of more than 30 countries.

e-mail: tcucenoglu@yahoo.com