Education Under Fire

The USC Center on Public Diplomacy, USC Office of Religious Life, USC School of Cinematic Arts, Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, Interfaith Council, International Human Rights Clinic, Academic Culture Assembly, Baha'i Student Association and the Los Angeles Baha'i Center are pleased to co-sponsor a screening and discussion of the film, Education Under Fire.

Following the screening, actor-comedian Rainn Wilson and activist Reza Aslan join director Jeff Kaufman, USC alumnus and executive producer David Hoffman and Shabnam Koirala-Azad for a panel discussion, moderated by USC Dean of Religious Life Varun Soni.

About Education Under Fire
Education Under Fire is produced by Single Arrow Productions and co-sponsored by Amnesty International. The 30-minute documentary profiles the growth, struggle, and inspiring spirit of the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education. Baha'is in Iran have been subjected to systematic persecution, including arrests, torture, and execution simply for refusing to recant their beliefs. They are also prohibited from going to college (and blocked from many professions).

In 1987, the semi-underground Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was formed to give young Baha'is their only chance for a university-level education. Despite repeated raids and arrests, volunteer teachers and administrators created an independent, decentralized university system that has lifted the lives of thousands of Baha'i students across Iran. In May, 2011, an organized assault was launched by the Iranian government in an attempt to shut down the BIHE. Over 30 homes were raided and over a dozen BIHE professors and administrators were detained. Several are still in prison for doing nothing more than trying to teach. The film connects a diverse audience to a grave human rights issue, a powerful story of resilience against oppression, and the need to respect human rights everywhere.

In the documentary, a BIHE graduate expresses a shared resolve, "The government can crush our bodies, but they cannot crush the mind and soul." Another BIHE graduate whose father was executed in 1981, says, "We can use this experience to not only just think about ourselves and what is important to us, but to look at the bigger picture; to think of people of this world as they were our own family." That is the larger, universal message of this film. Education Under Fire will inform and move a diverse audience around the world.

About the Panelists

REZA ASLAN (Founder/Scholar, AslanMedia.com)
Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is the founder of AslanMedia.com, an online journal for news and entertainment about the Middle East and the world. Reza Aslan has degrees in Religions from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues; Abraham's Vision, an educational, conflict transformation organization for Israeli and Palestinian youths; PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world; among others.Aslan's first book is the International Bestseller, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into thirteen languages. He is also the author of How to Win a Cosmic War (published in paperback as Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age), as well as editor of two volumes: Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East, and Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalties, Contentions, and Complexities.

DAVID HOFFMAN (Founder, "Education Under Fire" / Executive Producer)
Myrtle Beach oceanfront developer and marketer who made a significant mark in driving new and innovative development all along the Myrtle Beach coastline. A member of the Baha’i Faith, himself, and married to an Iranian for nearly thirty years, Hoffman has long been concerned with the systematic attack of the Iranian government on Baha’is. In 2011, Hoffman formed Single Arrow Productions and began documenting on film individual accounts of human rights abuses in Iran, producing a series of short documentaries - Angels of Iran - featuring Baha’is, Kurds, student activists and others who are targets of the Iranian regime. In response to the May 2011 attack on the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), Hoffman quickly assembled resources to launch a new campaign and documentary under the same name, Education Under Fire. Hoffman is also executive producer of Savoy King, a feature documentary written and directed by Kaufman about Swing-era drummer-bandleader Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald, and Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.

JEFF KAUFMAN (Producer, Director)
Producer/Director Jeff Kaufman has produced ten short films for Amnesty International, including one that launched a human rights youth mentoring fellowship with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. He also donated his services to make a film for the families of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the two young Americans who have been unjustly imprisoned in Iran since July 2009. He recently finished the feature documentary The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America. It features the voices of Bill Cosby, Janet Jackson, John Legend, Andy Garcia, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Tyne Daly, Ron Perlman, and Billy Crystal, among others. Earlier efforts include several Discovery Channel programs, a documentary on behalf of Iranian-American political prisoner Haleh Esfandiari, a behind-the-scenes history of the series COPS, and the feature documentary, Brush With Life.

SHABNAM KOIRALA-AZAD (Assistant professor of Human Rights at SFU and teacher at the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education)
Shabnam's research areas include: globalization and transnationalism; immigration and education; global citizenship; social and cultural theory; international comparative education; gender, education and social change; qualitative approaches to research.

VARUN SONI (Moderator)
Varun Soni is the dean of religious life at the University of Southern California (USC). He is also a University Fellow at USC Annenberg's Center on Public Diplomacy and a member of the State Bar of California, the American Academy of Religion, and the Association for College and University Religious Affairs. He serves on the advisory board for the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, the Music Preservation Project, the Journal for Interreligious Dialogue, CrossCurrents, the Guibord Center, and the Parliament of the World's Religions. Prior to joining USC, he spent four years teaching in the Law and Society Program at UCSB. He also produced and hosted his own radio show on Pacifica (KPFK) showcasing music from South Asia and its diaspora. He holds degrees in religion from Tufts University, Harvard Divinity School, UCSB, and the University of Cape Town, as well as a law degree from UCLA School of Law.

RAINN WILSON (Actor/Comedian)
Rainn Wilson can currently be seen on NBC in the seventh season of the Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award winning series for “Best Comedy,” The Office. Wilson turned in a humorous cameo in the summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Working through his short summer hiatus from The Office, Wilson completed production on three independent features for 2011: Peep World; Hesher; and Super (which he also co-executive produced). Wilson was also heard as the voice of the lone alien, ‘Gallaxhar,’ trying to take over the planet in the Dreamworks’ 2009 animated feature Monsters vs. Aliens. Wilson honed his theatre skills on the stage in New York for years before making the trip to Los Angeles to pursue on-screen work. His credits include performances in two Broadway plays, London Assurance and The Tempest, as well as off-Broadway productions of The New Bozena (a piece he created), Plunge, Venus, Titus Andronicus, and Twelfth Night.

To learn more about the film and to view the trailer, click here.

To R.S.V.P, please follow this link.