Born in Tehran, Iran, filmmaker and visual artist Bani Khoshnoudi immigrated to the USA in 1979. Her films, videos and photography work explore themes around exile, memory, the archive and its creation, as well as the textures and traces of modernity, in particular architecture and its ruins, and historical revolt.  She studied photography and cinema at the University of Texas at Austin, and continued her studies later as a studio artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in New York. Her short film TRANSIT (2004) won the Grand Jury Prizeat Premiers Plans Angers and was nominated for the Jean Vigo Prize and the PrixNovaïs-Terxeira. Her first feature, ZIBA (2012) was selected for theCinéfondation Residency - Cannes Film Festival and premiered at the RotterdamFilm Festival. Her most well known documentary, THE SILENT MAJORITY SPEAKS(2010-14), is part of the French critic Nicole Brenez’ list of top 10 essentialfilms ever made, and is included in Georges Didi-Huberman’s exhibit and book project, “Uprisings”. The filmshowed at a number of festivals including Viennale, Art of the Real (NYC), and Cinéma du Réel, and screened at museums like the ICA in London and theCentre Pompidou in Paris and won the HIVOS Cinema Unlimited Award at IDFA.  FIREFLIES (2018), her secondfeature fiction, was shot in Veracruz, Mexico.  The film premiered at Rotterdam and won the HBO Prize for bestIbero-American feature at the Miami International Film Festival.