Ramin Bahrani is an Iranian American director and screenwriter, heralded by Roger Ebert as “the new great American director.” Bahrani attended Columbia University. His films present unfamiliar visions of familiar places (New York City, the American South) through the stories of “new Americans.” His first feature, Man Push Cart, which premiered at the 2005 Venice Film Festival, is about a former Pakistani pop star working as a pushcart vendor in New York. The much-heralded Goodbye Solo (2008) is about a Senegalese taxi driver in North Carolina who tries to save his elderly passenger from committing suicide. Bahrani is Adjunct Professor of Directing in Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program.