Bani Khoshnoudi was born in Tehran, Iran, and immigrated to the United States in 1979. After her studies in photography and filmmaking at the University of Texas at Austin, she moved to France where she began her work as a screenwriter and director. She has directed short films and documentaries for the screen and for television, and has won a number of prizes in international festivals and contests.

In 2003, she made the one-hour documentary, The New Criminals of Europe, about Iranian, Afghani, and Kurdish refugees who were staying at the Red Cross camp at Sangatte in the North of France. This film was used by immigrants’ rights groups like the GISTI and the CIMADE in France.

In 2004, Bani made the fiction short, TRANSIT. The film won the best screenplay prize at the Rencontres Cinématographiques de Gindou and went on to win the important Grand Jury Prize at the Premiers Plans Angers Festival. The film played in many international film festivals such as the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Sao Paulo Mostra, Larissa New Directors, Brooklyn International Film Festival, Goteburg Exile Film Festival, Flying Broom in Ankara, and others. The film played on French Channel 2 and was nominated for the Jean Vigo Prize in 2005, as well as the Prix Novaïs-Texeira.

Also in 2004, she directed SHIRIN EBADI : A simple lawyer, a feature documentary commissioned by the French channel ARTE. The film played in mnternational festivals and on television around the world, and today is part of a number of university library collections.

In 2006, Bani founded her production company, Pensée Sauvage Films, and has recently produced and directed short and feature works in Tehran and New York. In 2008, she produced and directed the feature length documentary, A People in the Shadows, about the city and the people of Tehran.

In addition to filmmaking, Bani makes more experimental work in the form of installation and video projection. Her 2007 video piece Tehran Portraits was shown at the Paris-Berlin Rencontres in 2006 and 2007. This work was also shown in 2007 in a joint exhibit between Washington DC and Tehran called TRANSFORM/nation.

In 2008, Bani was chosen to participate in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program as a Studio artist in residency. There she will continue her work on issues of exile and modernity, displacement and dislocation.

In 2006, Bani began writing the experimental feature, The Last Image (previously: “EKBATAN”), which was finalist for the Amiens Screenplay Development Fund and winner of the Moulin d’Andé writing Residency in France. In Tehran, she is currently pursuing archival research for that film, while writing her first fiction feature, ZIBA. With this project, Bani has been selected for the Cinéfondation Screenwriting Residency of the Cannes Film Festival, which takes place from October 2009 to February 2010 in Paris, France.

She is also currently working with sound and image installation, and beginning experiments in visual accompaniment to improvized music with Andy Moor and other collaborators.