Emelie Mahdavian is a filmmaker, dancer, musician, and Fulbright scholar whose work frequently deals with gender, media, and global politics. Previously, she was Director of the Davis Feminist Film Festival, Panels Coordinator for the Mill Valley Film Festival, and Assistant Director of Ballet Afsaneh. Her documentary After the Curtain premiered at Lincoln Center as part of Dance on Camera 2016 and her experimental motion-capture short film Intangible Body is currently installed at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum and the Czong Institute of Contemporary Art. Emelie studied filmmaking at London Film School and has Ph.D. in Performance Studies with an emphasis in Film Practice as Research from the University of California, Davis.

Midnight Traveler is a feature-length autobiographical documentary chronicling the struggles of a family of Afghan filmmakers on the run after they become targets of the Taliban. Touching on current political topics like the refugee crisis in Europe, the film puts a human face on these issues by providing first-person access to one family’s choices, anxieties, and hopes as they try to survive the smuggling route to Europe.