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

Born in Ankara, Turkey, 1963.

Graduated from Ege University and in 1986 sold her successful public relations business and moved to London where she has lived since.

In London she set up business and studied Fine Art part-time from 1986 to 2004 where she took various courses amongst others at Chelsea Art School. She is inspired by spiritualism and communication, her work varies from realistic to stylized abstraction and an expression of space.

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Omer Zulfu Livaneli was born in Ilgin, Turkey in 1946. After being held under military detention for three months during the coup of March 12 th, 1971, he had to leave Turkey and move to Sweden. After Stockholm, he lived in Paris and Athens, and he returned to Turkey in 1984.

Livaneli’s latest novel “Leyla’s House” was published in Turkey in May 2006; as of today it’s in its 45th edition and a number one best-seller.

His third novel “Bliss”, published in 2002, also a number one best-seller, made 44 editions, became almost a cult work and is recently adapted to cinema in Turkey. In 2005, “Bliss” was published in Greece and Sweden, and in 2006, it was published in France by Gallimard, in the United States by St.Martin’s Press and in Italy by Gremese. Immediately after its publication in the latter, Bliss was awarded by Barnes & Noble, the biggest bookstore chain in the world, with the annually given “Discover Great New Authors” award due to its “superior literary value”. Bliss will soon be published in Norway by Gylendal and in Netherlands by Prometheus/ Bert Bakker. His second novel “One Cat One Man One Death”, his first novel “The Eunuch of Constantinople” and a collection of his stories titled “A Child in Purgatory” have also been published abroad.

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Born north of Izmir (Turkey) on 25.09.1960, Osman Engin came as a twelve-year-old boy to Germany in 1973. He studied social studies at Bremen and graduated in 1989.

Between 1983 and 2003, Osman Engin wrote satirical short stories every month for the city magazine “Der Bremer” (”The Bremener)”, after which he switched to the Hamburg magazine “Oxmox”. He has already published twelve books. “Kanaken-Gandhi” is so far the most successful and will soon be made into a film. His newest book, “A Turkish Christmas”, came out last year.

Osman hopes through his satires to make the reader aware of injustices in society. He wants to provoke reflection. At the same time, he wants to tackle the issue of German-Turkish relations. “The Germans would call it holding up a mirror,” he says.

Last year, Engin recieved the ARD Media prize for his satire I am the Pope. This is an important acknowledgment of his work. His satire, according to the jury, “makes fun of everyday prejudices and clichés.” He wonders, admittedly, what Germany’s Turkish population thinks of his literary work. “The best recognition of my satires is the laughter of my audience,” grins Osman.

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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.

Berrin Yavuzer – Artist Statement

I am working with the uncontrolled expression and combination of internal imagery, abstractions freighted with feeling. I tend to paint medium to large canvases in primary acrylics.

It is a real challenge for me to use words about my work. Cultural influences of the eastern Mediterranean, clash of east and west, symbolic glyphs, tales of the Aegean diaspora, images of ancient myth, and Muslim constraint recur in my work – on the surface and just beneath it.

My feeling varies in reflection of inner struggles, typified by forceful expressions of color. There is the constant battle to bridge external reality and the unconscious. Sometimes there is an internal leap beyond the threshold to dream and fantasy, an unexplainable odyssey into childhood fear and fulfillment.

The woman at the canvas – child, daughter, woman, wife, mother, human, artist – reaches into darkness and finds colorful nightmare visions in her. The woman in me – extravert, unusual, pessimist, with a black and white window on life – needs to fight to bring to light these visions as the past and the darkness reach out for me. Yet my conscious aesthetic remains excitement and sensitivity.

I was born and raised in Turkey. I received my BA degree in film and television production from Marmara University in Istanbul where I worked as a film editor and painter for many years. I came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001. My goal is to become more widely known in the American art world.

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