LA rebel and renowned filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka produced three of his feature titles while studying film at UCLA. Fanaka was a filmmaker who worked to produce high-quality films outside of mainstream Hollywood, especially within the African-American community. Read more...

Photo: UCLA alumnus Jamaa Fanaka directed the “Penitentiary” films. Fanaka, who died in 2012, directed films which will be screened by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. (Courtesy of United Artists/Photofest)

As a young girl growing up in Iran, Golnaz Jamsheed used to watch somber Iranian movies, like “Taste of Cherry,” with her mother. “The movies of the time, which are now national treasures, capture a feeling of melancholy and the state of the times which was very dark for my young age,” Jamsheed said. Read more...

Photo: For alumna Golnaz Jamsheed’s short film “Miracle Town,” working with a child actor gave the character of a silent, young boy a sense of childlike innocence and authenticity that reflected her own childhood, Jamsheed said. (Courtesy of Haolu Wang)

A real-world prison escape inspired writer and director Daniel Lafrentz’s film “Noble Creatures.” Lafrentz, a graduate student in film, based his film off an article he read in 2015 about two prisoners who escaped a maximum security prison in New York. Read more...

Photo: Alumnus Daniel Lafrentz based his film “Noble Creatures” off of a real life prison escape in New York. However, Lafrentz set his film in Louisiana in order to create tension using its natural landscape in places such as Lafayette and Maurice, and also featured Louisiana-native actors. (Daniel Leibowitz/Daily Bruin)