
Amir Motlagh: I am a filmmaker, more specifically, a film director. Initially, I started as an actor, spent a few years getting professional training (Stella Adler, Meisner, Strasburg etc.), then one day, came up with an idea for a film, got a few people together to help, hustled my way into some equipment, and made my first film, Dino Adino in 2001. That was the start of a long love affair with media creation. At that point, I also had a BA in Psychology from UCLA. In some strange misguided way, I thought that this would help me be a better actor. After another five films, some success, some failure, I went back to school to get an MFA, specifically in directing, at Chapman University, mostly to better understand the process of film directed, not just my way, but also in a way that’s been established through a hundred years. Education, any way you can get it, can only help motivated people grow as artists; that’s the bottom line. But of the same token, if I were to listen to everything that they feed you at film school, I would never make another film again. Thankfully, that didn’t happen to me. And, at this point, I have made ten films, which have played all over the world."