Michal Conford

M.J., Documentary Filmmaking, Univ. of California, Berkeley

B.A. (High Honours, magna cum laude), Brandeis University

Michal Conford has worked as a writer and filmmaker in Europe, the Middle East and North America.  Among his works are the award-winning documentary films River People and Not On Any Map, the screenplays for Ice Planet and Yasmine, and the libretto for Nyx, a blues-inflected opera which premiered at the Munich Biennale.  He’s a recipient of the IDA’s David Wolper Prize, as well as a Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco International Film Fest, among others.  Previously, Michal worked as a writer and editor for the San Jose Mercury, CNN Middle East and New York Times Television and has had short fiction published in The Dalhousie Review. A graduate of Brandeis and UC Berkeley he was a Directing Fellow at AFI and the recipient of grants from the MacArthur and Ford Foundations. He has recently completed his first VR project, Fragments of Jerusalem, which premiered at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto and the Haifa International Film Festival and was an official invitee to Hot Docs 2020. His latest screenplay is Brother True, set along the Mississippi River at the beginning of the Jim Crow era. He currently teaches writing and directing at the School of Image Arts, where he was Director of the Film Program for nearly a decade.