Film Screening and Discussion: Women on the Front Line

Women on the Front Line

Film Screening with Panel Discussion
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 . 5:30PM
Women on the Front Line artwork courtesy of Reel Content Productions
Women on the Front Line artwork courtesy of Reel Content Productions
Principal People: 

Filmmaker and panelist Sheema Kalbasi

Panelist Leila Milani, JD, MA

Panelist Aida Saadat

Film director of content/research and panelist Parvaneh Vahidmanesh

Moderator Fatemeh Keshavarz

Join us for a screening of Women on the Front Line, a documentary by Iranian poet, filmmaker and human rights activist Sheema Kalbasi. This documentary details the determination and struggles of Iranian women over the past thirty years. A panel discussion and Q & A moderated by Fatemeh Keshavarz will follow the film.

This event is sponsored by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the Roshan Center for Persian Studies and the Graduate Field Committee in Film Studies.

Information about Women on the Front Line

Visit the filmmaker's website for information about the documentary and background information on the women's situation in Iran.

Biographies

Leila Milani, JD, MA

Leila has worked on the promotion and protection of human rights at the State Department, Congress, at the White House and at the UN. Over the past decade she has worked on the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act in the United States, chaired the National Working Group on the Ratification of CEDAW in the United States, and engaged in advocacy efforts focused on the human rights violations in Iran. Currently, Leila is an independent consultant and works on a variety of initiatives dealing with international human rights issues, but her primary focus is on Iran and women’s rights. She is the co-founder of Iran Rooyan. Leila holds a law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law and a Masters in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. Leila speaks, reads, and writes fluent Farsi.

Aida Saadat

Aida is a program officer at Freedom House. Before she was forced into exile, Aida was a civil society activist with a concentration on Change for Equality for Women in Iran.

Parvaneh Vahidmanesh

The Director of Content and Research for ​Women on the Front Line, Parvaneh has over seven years of experience working on issues mostly related to human rights and civic society in Iran, Afghanistan and Syria. She is one of the founding members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporter (CHRR) in Iran. She has worked as a teacher to homeless children and Afghan refugees in Iran. She has also worked as a journalist with several reformist newspapers such as Etemad and Hamshahri in Iran and with print and online media in Iran and abroad. Her areas of expertise include but not limited to refugees, women’s rights, and children rights. She is now with Freedom House where she has assumed roles as a managing editor and currently a program officer focusing on Human Rights issues. Ms. Vahidmanesh has a masters degree in history from Tehran University and Arabic language education from Damascus University.