Emad Tayefeh

Emad Tayefeh (pronounced taw-ye-feh) is an Iranian filmmaker, animator, writer and photographer who fled his homeland last year and is seeking asylum in the U.S. He is finishing a documentary feature, “Public Enemies,” about Iranian reformers’ attempts to change the repressive government. In 2009, he was sent to prison for the first time (and ended up spending years imprisoned) because he persisted in filming the forbidden subject of anti-government activism. His animated and fiction shorts have won prizes at film festivals in Iran and France, and he has been interviewed for publications including the Guardian. A resident of New York City since July 2016, he has been taking master classes at the New York Film Academy, giving talks including at Adelphi University and photographing his new hometown from the waterfronts to the Halloween parade floats to the pigeons living on the Empire State Building’s observatory ledges.