Grants & Awards

About the Film:

Moving (working title) explores something all humans do in some form: jump the fence to see if the grass really is greener on the other side.  Moving (working title) is a feature-length documentary that looks at the issues of immigration around the world from the perspective of individuals and families who face incredible odds to bring diversity and change to the communities into which they move.

About the Filmmakers:

Hamid Rahmanian is a filmmaker and graphic designer. He holds a B.F.A. from the University of Tehran in Graphic Design and earned a M.F.A. in Computer Animation in 1997 from Pratt Institute in New York City. He received “The First Place College Award” (a student Emmy) from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and was nominated for a Student Academy Award for his animation, The Seventh Day, among other awards in 1997. His first 35 mm film, a 19 minute experimental short, An I Within, received Kodak’s “Best Cinematography Award” and “Best American Short” from the LA Int’l Short Film Festival. Mr. Rahmanian then went on to make three documentaries on video: Breaking Bread (2000), Sir Alfred Charles of Charles de Gaulle Airport (2001) and Shahrbanoo (2002), all of which have been well received by the media and worldwide audiences. In 2003, Mr. Rahmanian co-founded and was the president (2003-2007) of ARTEEAST, an organization committed to promoting the arts and cultures of the Middle East in the US and abroad. In 2005 he completed his first feature length film entitled Day Break, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was the recipient of several prestigious awards.  He completed the feature-length documentary The Glass House in the fall of 2008 that premiered at IDFA and Sundance Film Festival. It was the winner of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Human Rights Award. Melissa Hibbard is a filmmaker and photographer. She earned her BA in Moving Image Arts in 1996 from the College of Santa Fe where she studied documentary filmmaking.  Upon graduation, she moved to Los Angeles and worked in the film industry as an art director on feature films for five years.  Over the last ten years, she has produced four documentaries under Fictionville Studio, a production company she co-founded with partner, Hamid Rahmanian: Breaking Bread (2000), which premiered on PBS and Sir Alfred Charles of Charles de Gaulle Airport (2001).  Both have been well received by the media and worldwide audiences. Shahrbanoo (2002) premiered on PBS station WNET where it received among the highest ratings for an independently produced documentary. The Glass House (2008), produced in association with the Sundance Channel, premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam in November 2008 and the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, and received the Human Rights Award (OSCE, Docufest) and Best Feature Documentary (Dallas Video Fest).  In 2003, she co-established a non-profit organization – ARTEEAST – its mission statement to promote the arts and cultures of the Middle East and it’s worldwide diasporas in the United States; she was a board member and the ArteEast Online Director through 2007. In 2009, Melissa founded Fictionville Media, a documentary distribution service aimed at helping filmmakers self-distribute their own works.