Hisham Bizri

Hisham Bizri (Arabic: هيشام البزري ‎ is a film director, writer, producer, and scholar born in Beirut, Lebanon. Bizri started working in films in the US and Hungary with filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Raoul Ruiz, and Miklós Jancsó and has directed over 25 short films. His industry experience includes work as Producer at Future TV (Lebanon), Creative Director at Orbit Communications Company (Rome/Dubai/Beirut/Cairo), and President & Creative Director of Levantine Films (NYC). Bizri also has taught film for over two decades, most recently as Professor of Filmmaking and Screenwriting in the Literary Arts Department at Brown University. He previously taught at the University of Minnesota, MIT, UC Davis, NYU, Boston University, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and in Lebanon, Korea, Japan, Ireland, and Jordan (where he also initiated a number of academic film programs). His students have gone on to study film at NYU, USC, AFI, UCLA, La Fémis (Paris) and FAMU (Prague). In 2015, moved by the Syrian refugee crisis, Bizri returned to Jordan to partner with Jordan's Royal Film Commission in producing documentaries made by Arab filmmakers chronicling life in the Zaatari refugee camp and, in 2016, curating film programs for Syrian refugee children in Amman.

Bizri hails from a politically and financially prominent Levantine Arab clan—the El-Bizri—who ultimately trace their lineage to the Imam al-Husayn bin 'Ali. The family has included public servants, politicians, and merchants since Ottoman times, with its political influence originally centered in Sidon and Damascus.

Bizri's work has been shown in international venues including Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Oberhausen (multiple times), Moscow, and Abu Dhabi film festivals as well as the Louvre, Institut du Monde Arabe, Cinémathèque Française, Centre Pompidou, MoMa, and Anthology Film Archives (NYC). He is recipient of awards from the McKnight, LEF, Jerome, and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and American Academy in Rome, which awarded him the "Rome Prize" (FAAR 2009).

Early in his career, Bizri served as Producer at Future TV (Lebanon) and Creative Director of Orbit Communications Company (Rome/Dubai/Beirut/Cairo). In 2005, he co-founded The Arab Institute of Film (Amman, Jordan) with the Syrian filmmaker Omar Amiralay and Danish producer Jakob Høgel, with support from the Danish government, International Media Support (Denmark), and the Ford Foundation. In 2012, he was named President & Creative Director of Levantine Films (NYC).

Bizri met his wife, a philosopher, in 1986 and they married in 1993. The couple resides in Providence, RI with their daughter.

The youngest of seven children of Lebanese parents, Bizri was raised in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and 1982 Israeli Siege of Beirut. Bizri’s mother often would send him to the movie theater as an escape. The movie houses of Beirut introduced Bizri to classic Hollywood films by D.W. Griffith, John Ford, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, and Chaplin; the European films of Ingmar Bergman, F. W. Murnau, and Roberto Rossellini; and many avant garde works, as well.

On his website, Bizri lists the films he appreciates, including: "Arabic Series" (Stan Brakhage, 1981), "Red River" (Howard Hawks, 1946), "The Sun Shines Bright" (John Ford, 1953), "Au Hasard, Balthazar" (Robert Bresson, 1966), "Gertrud" (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964), "The 47 Ronin" (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1942), "The Earrings of Madame de..." (Max Ophuls, 1953), "India: Matri Bhumi" (Roberto Rossellini, 1959), The Tarnished Angels (Douglas Sirk, 1957), and "The Masseurs and a Woman" (Hiroshi Shimizu, 1938), as well as the films of D. W. Griffith and Gregory Markopoulos.