Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa is a filmmaker, educator, and festival advisor and curator. 

She is professor emerita of the School of Film and Television at Columbia College Chicago, where she taught Film Production and Film Studies. Mehrnaz has written and published extensively on Iranian cinema. Her book on Abbas Kiarostami, co-written with Jonathan Rosenbaum (2nd edition in 2017) has been translated into many languages. . She is theArtistic Advisor and Co-Founder of the Annual Festival of Films from Iran at the Gene Siskel Film Center Chicago since 1989.  

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(She received an award for 30 year of work as the founder andArtistic Consultant of Festival of Film from Iran, Gene Siskel Film Center, Fall 2019) 

Mehrnaz is an award-winning filmmaker. Some of her films including A Tajik Woman and for Jerry and Me, The Silent Majority,  Saless, Far From Home, and A House is Not a Home have been screened in several domestic and international film festivals. 

Mehrnaz has served both as jury for many festivals including, Annual Student Academy Award Regional Competition (from 2008 to 2013),  Chicago International Films Festival, International Children’s Film Festival, International Film School Film Festival in Tetouan, Morocco, Big Muddy Film Festival, International Film Festival (of the National Autonomous University of Mexico,) FICUNAM in Mexico City, and Chicago Feminist Film Festival. 

Barbara Scharres is currently Artistic Director for the Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival.  In addition, she works as a consultant for private clients including filmmakers and distributors, and as a freelance journalist for outlets including RogerEbert.com. 

Scharres retired as Director of Programming for the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago after 45 years over which her role included developing and implementing one of the largest year-around public programs of world cinema in North America.  She founded and oversaw the growth of annual projects including the Hong Kong Film Festival, the ChicagoEuropean Union Film Festival, and the Black Harvest Film Festival.    

In 2006, the French government awarded Scharres one of its highest honors by designating her a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.  She was named a "Chicagoan of the Year in the Arts" by the Chicago Tribune three times: in 1989; 1991; and 1999, and has been profiled in publications including Chicago Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and Variety. 

She has published feature articles and criticism in film magazines and journals including Film Comment, American Cinematographer, the ChicagoReader, Variety, The Independent, the ChicagoSun-Times, and www.RogerEbert.com, an outlet for which she regularly contributed extensive coverage of the Cannes Film Festival.  She has contributed to books including Hong KongBabylon, edited by Fred Dannen; John Woo Interviews edited by Robert K. Elder; and Woo: Leben und Werk (published in German) edited by Thomas Gaschler and Ralph Umard.    

Scharres has given individual lectures on Asian cinema at institutions including Yale University; Columbia University; the China Institute, New York; and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  She has expertise in the development of ethnic community audiences and has consulted for other media programs and educational institutions.  She has served on media arts panels for entities including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Minnesota Arts Board. 

Karen Severns has worked in New York and Tokyo as a journalist, filmmaker, critic and curator. She has produced numerous industrials, art/architecture videos and short films, including Oscar nominee One Day Crossing and the feature-length documentary Magnificent Obsession: Frank Lloyd Wright's Buildings and Legacy in Japan. She holds an MS in Journalism and an MFA in Film from Columbia University and has written widely on topics ranging from film to architecture to travel in Asian and other publications. Karen taught film and writing courses for a decade at Waseda University and Temple University Japan and is currently a visiting professor at Tokyo University of the Arts. She has been the film series curator at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan since 2008 and was a programmer for the New York Asian Film Festival from 2015-2025. She is a founding partner of Tokyo-based KiSMet Productions, a boutique film production and promotion company involved in a range of transnational projects.