Among The Believers

Director/Producer/Editor Hemal Trivedi:

Hemal is a Mumbai and New York City based documentary films’ editor / director for over a decade. Her credits include: Outlawed in Pakistan (Editor, Emmy-2014, PBS-Frontline, Sundance); Saving Face (Editor, Oscar-2012, Two Emmys-2013, HBO/Channel 4); Shabeena’s Quest (Director/Editor, Witness, Al Jazeera); Flying on One Engine (Editor, SXSW, IDFA); Laughter (Editor, BBC); When the Drum is Beating (Editor, ITVS, Tribeca 2011); and Beyond Mumbai (Director, Camera & Editor, OWN, 2011 Webby nomination). She has produced and edited over 50 award-winning shorts for Odyssey Networks.

Director's Statement: Upon losing a friend in the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008, I sought to understand the root cause of these attacks that were carried out from Pakistan. After careful study, I realized that ordinary Pakistanis are themselves victims rather than perpetrators. The same extremist elements who carried out the attacks in Mumbai are actually terrorizing their own people on a daily basis, and the country’s very survival is at stake. I started filming in Pakistan in 2009. In 2010 I collaborated with producer Jonathan Goodman Levitt and Pakistani filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi, and together we have been filming this ideological conflict that is ripping the country apart and causing it to implode.

Director Mohammed Naqvi:

Emmy-winning filmmaker Mohammed is also a fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts and American Film Institute's Project 20:20 program. In addition, his work has received numerous awards including the Amnesty Human Rights Award, the United Nations Association Festival Grand Jury Award, and has been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art. Documentary credits include: Shame (Showtime), Pakistan's Hidden Shame (Channel 4), Shabeena's Quest (Al-Jazeera), and Terror’s Children (Discovery). Mohammed has produced two narrative feature films, Big River and I Will Avenge You Iago; starring Giancarlo Esposito and Larry Pine, recently directing narrative short Happy Things in Sorrow Times.

Director's Statement: Growing up in Pakistan, I witnessed the burgeoning influence of militant Islam, one which violently silenced dissenting opinion from progressive Muslims. When I got the opportunity to work on Among The Believers, it was a chance to not only expose the rhetoric of militant Islam, but also highlight the progressive Muslim forces trying desperately to fight militancy. During the course of filming, we gained unprecedented access to Abdul Aziz, the Taliban's main spokesperson, and documented his growing influence over four years.

Producer/Writer Jonathan Goodman Levitt:

Jonathan’s work as director and/or producer has been supported by broadcasters including BBC, PBS, NHK-Japan and over a dozen other broadcasters. His latest directing project FOLLOW THE LEADER was featured on C-Span, CNN & Fox; released by Angelika Film Center, PBS stations & Cinedigm; and was the only documentary to premiere during both the 2012 Republican and Democratic national conventions. His first feature SUNNY INTERVALS AND SHOWERS (Director, Producer, Editor, Camera, 2003) screened at Festivals including Sheffield, Chicago and One World; aired as part of the BBC Storyville documentary strand; and was nominated for Grierson (British Documentary) and Mental Health Media Awards.

An equal Producer of AMONG THE BELIEVERS, Jonathan’s company Changeworx's productions are currently being supported by funders including Ford Foundation, Sundance Documentary Fund, TriBeCa Film Institute, and Center for Asian American Media. Jonathan's other personal credits include roles on a film about North Face founder Doug Tompkin's Chilean conservation work; BEING BEBE, a decade-long project about performance in every day life featuring Cameroonian drag queen Bebe Zahara Benet; and a Best Documentary Emmy-winner with Stephen Fry. After studying social psychology, political philosophy, and painting at Stanford, Jonathan was a Fulbright Scholar studying at the UK’s National Film School (NFTS) in 1999. He has been based in Brooklyn since 2008.

Executive Producer Whitney Dow:

Dow’s credits include Two Towns of Jasper (Sundance, P.O.V) and the Beacon Award winning I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education.  He has worked extensively in Haiti since where he directed two films: Unfinished Country (Wide Angle), and When the Drum is Beating, (Tribeca, Independent Lens.)  His producer credits include Freedom Summer, Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America, (Sundance, Independent Lens), The Undocumented (Independent Lens) and Toots (Tribeca, Theatrical) In addition to screening at numerous international film festivals and being broadcast on television networks around the world, Dow’s work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Smithsonian Institution. He is the recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont Award, Anthony Radziwill Documentary Achievement Award, and the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award as well as many film festival honors.  He is currently in production on the Whiteness Project, and Bright Lights, Dark Minds, a series on mental illness.

Consulting Editor David Zieff:

David Zieff has been crafting documentaries, feature films and television for three decades, working in music, comedy and sociopolitical arenas, occasionally at the same time.  Zieff recently directed and edited McConkey, a documentary about the legendary extreme-skier Shane McConkey which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.  He also edited the Tribeca-opening, Time Is Illmatic, about rap icon NAS' landmark debut album, and Alive Inside, an exploration of music and memory that won the 2014 Sundance Audience Award.  He edited and produced the critically-acclaimed Paul Williams Still Alive, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, as well Sundance nominees Crazy Love, winner of Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards, Happy Valley, Amir Bar-Lev's exploration of the Penn State scandal, and ESPN’s Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks.  He was also a creative consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, won a coveted Peabody Award for the documentary mini-series Black Magic and was supervising editor of the multiple-award-winning Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, shaping over 1,600 hours of footage into one of the most celebrated music films of all time.  He recently served as a creative advisor in the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Edit & Story Lab and is currently teaching at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Composer Milind Date:

Milind Date is one of the most versatile musicians from India. He is known for his immaculate Bansuri (bamboo flute) playing and composing. Milind is a senior performing disciple of world-famous Bansuri virtuoso Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. With more than 3,000 performances to his credit, Milind has vast experience of performing on various stages and for varied size of audience ranging from 20-30 to 50,000!!. His concerts are energy-packed and the crowd involvement is surely exciting!

Not only has Milind studied Indian classical and folk music; he has studied and featured in different styles of music from all over the world. Indian Classical Music, Indian Folk Music, Devotional Music, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Fusion-World Music, and Free Music are the common types in which he is seen performing and recording. An accomplished, versatile composer and arranger, Milind has experimented with several music and dance forms, as showcased in his band Fusion Ensemble. This experimental trait has led him to incorporate various dance forms and instruments and perform with several musicians from around the world. Milind has composed music for several short films and documentaries too. One of these documentaries was on The Dalai Lama and other one on Dr. Shardchandra Dicksheet the well-known Plastic Surgeon. These films were shown in many, many film festivals all over the world.

Co-Producer Naziha Syed Ali:

Naziha Syed Ali is based in Karachi, Pakistan and has been a journalist for nearly 25 years. For most of this time, she has worked in the print media both as editor and investigative reporter, focusing on stories about human rights violations, urban crime/land issues and religious extremism. Ms. Ali was assistant editor at Newsline magazine for several years, during which time she won an award for best coverage of violence against women for her story about honour killing. She is one of very few Pakistani women journalists to have travelled to Kabul, Afghanistan and reported from there when it was ruled by the Taliban. 

As a TV journalist, Ms. Ali has worked as a stringer in Pakistan for Channel Four News (UK) and produced a number of documentaries that have been screened on local television channels as well as at various international film festivals. Among these documentaries is the very well-received Miseducation of Pakistan, a shocking expose of government education in her country. 

An activist for interfaith harmony and democratic rights, Ms. Ali is an IVLP alumni and Chevening Scholar. She has master’s degrees in English literature and TV journalism and is currently assistant editor at Dawn, Pakistan's most widely read English newspaper.

Co-Producer Syed Musharraf Shah:

Syed Musharraf Shah has been a freelance field producer and stringer in Pakistan for the past 7 years. He has worked with various national and international film crews, including BBC and Channel 4 to help them with location scouting and figuring out logistics in Pakistan. Skilled in helping film crews gain access into communities that are hard to reach, he was Field Producer for a Channel 4 documentary, Pakistan's Streets of Shame. The film premiered at Sheffield Doc Fest and several other documentary film festivals, and has won several awards. He has also worked as a Field Producer for Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s film Happy Things In Sorrow Times, inspired by best-selling author Tehmina Durrani's book of the same name.

His family is spread out in the tribal areas of Afghanistan, the tribal areas of Pakistan, Swat Valley (hometown of the recent Noble Laureate, Malala Yousafzai) and Peshawar. He is fluent in Pashtu and Urdu. He was instrumental in gaining access to Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi for Among the Believers.

Assistant Editor/Assistant Producer Hina Ali:

Hina Ali is a journalist from Pakistan. A recent recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, she has worked with Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and BBC Media Action in Pakistan. She has eight years experience in broadcast journalism. She has studied journalism and documentary production from Arizona State University and University of Karachi.

Post Production Coordinator/Assistant Editor Chris McCue:

Chris McCue has worked in independent documentary films for eight years. McCue first worked with Maysles Films for six years, first as Office Manager then Assistant Editor/Archivist. He was Post Supervisor on Muhammad and Larry (2009) and Associate Producer on The Love We Make (2011). After a spell living in beautiful Austin, Texas, he has returned to New York working as a freelance Editor and Assistant Editor. He writes mystery novels under the pen name Richard H. North.

Cameraman Haider Ali:

Haider Ali is a Pakistan-based shooter with over sixteen years of experience, ranging from documentaries, news, studio based talk shows, corporate videos, TV dramas, and short fiction films. International clients and broadcasters include ITV, Channel 4, Al-Jazeera World, BBC, CNN, CNBC Pakistan, Clover Films UK, and 64th Street Media New York. Haider has worked with Emmy-winning Directors Mohammed Naqvi and Hemal Tridevi, BAFTA-nominee and Emmy-winning producer Jamie Doran, and Sundance-winning producer Jared Ian Goldman. In addition to having shot extensively all over Pakistan, Haider also teaches cinematography and media science at Iqra University and Women Media Center. Haider is certified in hostile environment and first aid training, and has experience filming in high-conflict and war zones.

Archival/Researcher Mohammed Ali Sheikh:

Mohammed Ali Sheikh has been making documentary films since the age of 17, and now ten years on, he has been part of some groundbreaking documentaries, including Outlawed in Pakistan by Hilke Schellman and Habiba Nausheen, for which he won an Emmy award in the research category in 2014.

Ali has in the past worked with numerous pioneering directors and NGO’s including Academy Award winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, UNDP, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Vice and Charter for compassion. Together, they have managed to bring to the screen, stories of marginalized people, while creating dialogue over social issues. Ali endeavors to use the power of film making to raise awareness about those who the world has forgotten.