True art makes the divine silence in the soul break into applause.
- Hafez
True art makes the divine silence in the soul break into applause.
Morning Bird Pictures Inc. (formerly Sepasi Films, est. 2003) is a production company dedicated to creating films, television, and new media projects that focus on the contemporary Middle East and diaspora.
Our last narrative short, Transit Game (2014), screened in 50+ international festivals winning awards in Berlin, Florence and San Francisco. In 2006, we produced our first feature-length documentary, Khaneh Ma: These Places We Call Home, which screened in international festivals and universities and was theatrically released at the NFB cinema in Montreal. The film was shot in Iran, Germany and Canada and was financed by the Canada Council of the Arts among other Canadian funding agencies.
Our latest projects include two interactive web-documentaries that focus on experiences of exile and migration through a female lens. Migrant Mothers of Syria was financed by the Bell Fund and produced in collaboration with Emmy award-winning new media company, Stitch Media. The web-doc premiered as part of the Academy Award qualifying Doc Edge Festival's Exhibition program and won a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Digital Media at the 2020 Yorkton Film Festival. My Life in Limbo was financed by the Canada Council for the Arts and premiered at the 2020 Montreal Digital Web Fest where it won the Jury Prize.
Morning Bird Pictures is currently in development on two feature-length narrative films: Valley of Exile (Prod. Morning Bird Pictures, Six Island Productions, Hawkeye Pictures) with financing from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council and Places in Between (Prod. Clique Pictures, Rep. Great North Artists Management) with financing from the Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada.
Our latest projects include two interactive web-documentaries that focus on experiences of exile and migration through a female lens. Migrant Mothers of Syria was financed by the Bell Fund and produced in collaboration with Emmy award-winning new media company, Stitch Media. The web-doc premiered as part of the Academy Award qualifying Doc Edge Festival's Exhibition program and won a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Digital Media at the 2020 Yorkton Film Festival. My Life in Limbo was financed by the Canada Council for the Arts and premiered at the 2020 Montreal Digital Web Fest where it won the Jury Prize.
Morning Bird Pictures is currently in development on two feature-length narrative films: Valley of Exile (Prod. Morning Bird Pictures, Six Island Productions, Hawkeye Pictures) with financing from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council and Places in Between (Prod. Clique Pictures, Rep. Great North Artists Management) with financing from the Harold Greenberg Fund and Telefilm Canada.
OUR TEAM
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Morning Bird Pictures Founder and Creative Director Anna Fahr is an award-winning independent filmmaker who divides time between Toronto and Beirut. Her work has screened in dozens of international film festivals, she has been the recipient of numerous grants and has participated in conferences, panels and pitching forums including the Toronto International Film Festival’s Talent Lab, Tribeca All Access Lab in New York, and Film Independent's Writing and Directing Labs in Los Angeles. Anna earned her BFA from Concordia University in Montreal in 2003 winning the award for overall outstanding achievement in film production. She earned her MA in Film and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University in 2010.
Anna believes in the power of film to bridge cultural divides and draws on her personal connections to North America and the Middle East to tell humanistic stories that cross cultural boundaries. In addition to filmmaking, Anna is an educator who has taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and in the Department of Communication Arts at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. |
Morning Bird Pictures Producer Habib Battah is an award-winning print and multimedia journalist and commentator reporting for many international and Arab news organizations over the last 12 years including CNN International, BBC, Al Jazeera and Variety. He is the two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award, of which his 2011 article and photo essay “Return to the Valley of Jews” serves as the inspiration for a documentary-in-development.
Battah graduated with an MA in journalism from New York University with an emphasis in documentary filmmaking. His producing credits include the 2014 short film Transit Game as well as the short documentary Boikutt in Shatila. Battah also shot and directed a 5-minute piece for the CNN International program Inside the Middle East and he shot, directed and co-edited the short film, From Beirut to Brooklyn: A Story of Exile and Return. Battah teaches journalism at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the news site, the Beirut Report.
Battah graduated with an MA in journalism from New York University with an emphasis in documentary filmmaking. His producing credits include the 2014 short film Transit Game as well as the short documentary Boikutt in Shatila. Battah also shot and directed a 5-minute piece for the CNN International program Inside the Middle East and he shot, directed and co-edited the short film, From Beirut to Brooklyn: A Story of Exile and Return. Battah teaches journalism at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the news site, the Beirut Report.