{"id":5077,"date":"2022-05-09T10:56:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T14:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/?p=5077"},"modified":"2025-04-21T10:22:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T14:22:22","slug":"5077","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/2022\/5077\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight: Maral Mohammadian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n\n
\n
\n
\n

\n Alumni Spotlight: Maral Mohammadian\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
\"Alumni<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maral Mohammadian<\/a> is a producer at the renowned National Film Board of Canada\u2019s Animation & Interactive Studio. She has produced over 30 shorts which have garnered awards at festivals such as TIFF. Credits include The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer<\/em> by Randall Okita, Deyzangeroo<\/em> by Ehsan Gharib and Shannon Amen<\/em> by Chris Dainty, as well as international coproductions Hide<\/em> by Daniel Gray (Hungary\/France) and Impossible Figures and Other Stories I <\/em>by Marta Pajek (Poland). Maral has helped to develop some of Canada\u2019s top rising talents through the NFB\u2019s Hothouse apprenticeship program, which has spawned a series of one-minute hits. In addition to films, she has produced interactive projects with a distinct artistic edge, such as Paloma Dawkins\u2019 acclaimed VR work, Museum of Symmetry<\/em>. The National Film Board of Canada is Canada’s public film and digital media producer and distributor. It has received more Academy Award nominations than any film organization in the world outside Hollywood. NFB Animation has garnered 7 Oscars\u00ae and is renowned for world-class, creator-driven animation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY: Lets start with a soft introductory question; what are some of your favourite genres and\/or areas of interest regarding film? <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>I don\u2019t think in genres really. I\u2019m open to anything that\u2019s honest and believable. I watch a lot of British comedy, documentaries of all kinds, indie films. Animation has a special place in my heart because it\u2019s such a powerful medium of expression and very versatile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY:  What was your overall experience with film studies at Carleton? <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>I was a bit skeptical at first because there was no practical component and I worried about how I would ever find work to pay back my student loans. But I quickly fell in love with the program because it was about history & philosophy through cinema. The classes introduced me to different cultures and traditions, and also to experimental film which blew me away. Experimental cinema talks about the world we don\u2019t see empirically but which we feel and are shaped by. Watching and writing about film with a critical eye and ear meant I got to learn the language and understand how it could be used. The practical aspects of the craft that I longed to learn came through trial and error \u2013 a group of us reignited the film club and started putting theory into practice by making our own shorts. We did 48hour film challenges and started a festival and collaborated on each other\u2019s ideas, often borrowing equipment from the more affluent journalism department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY:  What was your original goal going into university and did that change at all during your time at Carleton?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>I actually started off in the journalism program. But it felt too mechanical for me. My one elective in first year was a film class, taught by Laura Marks. Her passion for underground cinema was infectious \u2013 she introduced us to experimental films, African and Asian cinema, neorealism, and just expanded my horizons through film. So my focus switched from learning a profession to learning for the joy of it and letting university be a place of discovery. That\u2019s how I ended up with a minor in music \u2013 I just kept taking classes for sheer interest until I had enough credit for a minor. I never expected to get a job in the film industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY: Wow that\u2019s wonderful, so you\u2019re working in film now?  <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>I\u2019m a producer at the National Film Board of Canada, in the Animation & Interactive Studio. It\u2019s creative, inventive, unorthodox \u2013 all the things that turned me on during university. I get to work with incredible artists from all walks of life on their passion projects. We have the freedom to explore, take risks and try new things. The work is meaningful, sometimes deeply personal. It\u2019s an immense privilege and I\u2019m grateful for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY: How did film at Carleton help prepare you for that? Or like, influence the path you took to get there?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>Film studies was a mysterious thing for me during university. As much as I enjoyed what I was learning, I needed to connect it with my world somehow, because I knew I didn\u2019t want to be a teacher or a critic. So I volunteered at film organizations in town, which led to summer jobs and getting to know the scene. Through that I learned what I liked and didn\u2019t like about the industry. In 4th<\/sup> year, I got a coop placement at a wonderful artist-run production centre called SAW Video. They gave me free reign to do whatever I could within the scope of the placement. I curated a screening event which I turned into a self-reflexive multi-screen installation, where the audience became part of the show. Spending time at the coop put me in the hub of Ottawa\u2019s film community and that\u2019s how I discovered the Ottawa International Animation Festival (actually a close friend was doing his coop placement there). I volunteered at that festival so that I could attend screenings for free, and that\u2019s how I stumbled into the wild world of indie animation. I was blown away. They offered me a job and that\u2019s how I met the fine folks at NFB. And eventually they offered me a gig and I moved to Montreal. That turned into many more gigs and eventually a full-time producer position. The work I do now is quite broad \u2013 we have a very flexible definition of animation; it often involves live action and hybrid techniques. But it all draws on the fundamentals I learned at Carleton \u2013 storytelling, cinematography, montage, performance, POV, technology\u2026even the power and politics behind the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY: I love it! As we\u2019re wrapping up I want to ask: what would you tell someone who wants to study film academically but is unsure about it?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>I would say, keep an open mind. Studying film is learning many disciplines all at once: art, photography, history, music, politics, psychology, technology, communication, critical thinking. It\u2019s not going to give you an obvious career path but it\u2019s incredibly enriching and the skills you gain are versatile – you can apply them to different industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LILY: <\/b>This has been an enriching and wonderful interview. Is there anything you want to add for our readers?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARAL: <\/b>It\u2019s easy to have preconceived notions about what a career in film might be like, or even what aspects of it you think you like or dislike. But you don\u2019t really know until you try. So get your hands dirty \u2013 get involved, volunteer, do grunt work, learn DIY. I never would have thought I\u2019d be doing what I\u2019m doing or that such work even existed. It was through meeting great people and being open to new experiences that I\u2019m fortunate enough to be doing what I\u2019m doing. I had a support from good people, so nurture your relationships and remember that filmmaking is highly collaborative. Even if you\u2019re making something all by yourself, staying connected to others will fuel you. And you might land outside production which can be rewarding too, because it\u2019s still about culture and the way we see and shape the world through media.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maral Mohammadian is a producer at the renowned National Film Board of Canada\u2019s Animation & Interactive Studio. She has produced over 30 shorts which have garnered awards at festivals such as TIFF. Credits include The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer by Randall Okita, Deyzangeroo by Ehsan Gharib and Shannon Amen by Chris Dainty, as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-students-stories"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5077"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5088,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions\/5088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}