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Valérie Valère

Biography

Valérie Valère was the pseudonym of Valérie Samama (1 November 1961 – 17 December 1981), a French writer. She published her first work, the book Le Pavillon des enfants fous, in 1978 after spending four months confined to a psychiatric hospital for anorexia nervosa. The book is an autobiographical account covering her relationship with her abusive parents, experiences as a child in French society, and in particular her institutionalized years. Critics praised her style of writing and her expressive, philosophically sophisticated articulations of systemic mistreatment and misunderstanding. Scholar Richard A. Mazzara likens her work to Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Hermann Hesse, André Gide, and Virginia Woolf. Valérie Samama was born in the 15th arrondissement of Paris to a family of Tunisian origin. At age 13, after a family shock, she was committed to a psychiatric hospital for anorexia nervosa. Two years later she wrote a book about it, Le Pavillon des enfants fous ("The mad children's ward"), published in 1978 by Editions Stock. On Bernard Pivot's talk show Apostrophes, 27 April 1979, she said that she had received ten rejection letters from publishers before Stock accepted her manuscript. Her book criticizes the hospital setting in which she spent four months, describing it as coercive, humiliating and dehumanizing for the patients. In parallel with her studies at the lycée Racine in Paris, she took courses in tightrope walking at the school of Annie Fratellini. She saw the circus, like writing, as a way to escape reality. After obtaining her baccalauréat, she left to study at the Sorbonne. With the success of her first novel, she rented an apartment where she wrote Malika ou un Jour comme un autre ("Malika or a day like any other"), published in 1979, et Obsession blanche ("White obsession") the next year. In Malika she tells of a difficult relation between and a brother and a sister whom the adults bring to death, written from the point of view of the brother. She acted in two films, Pierrette (1977) by Guy Jorré and Équilibres (1979) de Marion Hänsel. She took her life at age 20, on 17 December 1982. In 2001, Isabelle Clerc wrote the first biography of Valérie Valère, Un seul regard m'aurait suffi ("One look would have been enough for me"), published by Perrin with an unpublished text by the author, Laisse pleurer la pluie sur tes yeux ("Let the rain weep on your eyes"), contributed by its historic publisher Christian de Bartillat. Source: Article "Valérie Valère" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Muhammad Hassaan

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Muhammad Hassaan, a 16-year-old award-winning youth leader, journalist, and education-focused changemaker, stands out as one of the youngest news anchors in Pakistan, recognized by both the Asian Book of Records and the National Book of Records. He currently contributes to the Awaz Group of Media, working with Radio Awaz and Awaz News. Beyond journalism, Hassaan has been invited to deliver guest lectures at prestigious institutions such as APS&CS, FGEI, and Fauji Foundation College. In 2025, Hassaan launched the Visionary Tech Society, a youth-driven initiative dedicated to raising awareness about artificial intelligence and promoting digital literacy, particularly among underserved communities. Through this platform, he has provided free lectures and mentorship in AI and technology to thousands of students. His contributions align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education), earning him recognition as a UN SDG Hero. Hassaan played a pivotal role in co-organizing TEDxAir University Kamra, bringing the first-ever TEDx experience to the Attock region. He worked closely with every department to ensure the event’s success while also delivering a talk as a speaker. As an author, Hassaan’s work has been officially recognized, with one of his books selected for the Legacy of Literature Award by The Literature Times, chosen from a diverse international pool for its excellence and impact. He has also served as a Campus Ambassador Intern for an International Model United Nations and was selected among the Top 50 delegates in the Asia Pacific for the Asia World Muslim Summit 2026 in Malaysia, where he received the Asia Muslim Inspiring Ambassador Award and participated as a self-funded delegate in the Youth Ambassador Fellowship Malaysia 2025. In the realm of sports leadership, Hassaan served as Vice President of the Attock Champions League 2025, co-managing one of the largest student-led inter-school and inter-college football tournaments in Attock, featuring 19 prominent institutions. Additionally, he has contributed as a Student Ambassador for Let’s Go Together Community (Pvt Ltd), a national initiative supporting home-based women entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurially, Hassaan co-founded Trendora Studios, a marketing agency, where he serves as Creative Director, leading the visual strategy for client campaigns. He is also a board member of the Pakistan Artificial Intelligence Association, a youth-led organization, where he provides strategic recommendations to support organizational growth. His professional engagements include attending ITCN Asia Lahore 2026 and the Global CISO Summit (Pakistan Edition) as a VIP delegate. Hassaan holds certifications in IT and technology from Microsoft, Google, and other leading global institutions. His accolades include the Impact Creator Award at Expo Center Lahore during the Future Leaders Award 2026 and special recognition at the Parliament of Australia during the World School Summit 2026. He has been nominated among the Top 100 Student Leaders of Pakistan and received the Top Student Leader Award at Islamabad National Skills University. Additionally, he has won multiple debating competitions and has been extensively featured in national media.
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Tania Cypriano

Biography

Tania Cypriano has been working between the United States and her native Brazil for more than twenty-five years. Her work has been shown around the world in places such as the MoMA, the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival, and the Berlin Int'l Film Festival. She has been honored with a retrospective at the Robert Flaherty Seminar, and is a grant recipient of the NY State Council on the Arts, the NY Foundation for the Arts, the Soros Documentary Fund, the Jerome Foundation, Experimental Television, and many others. Strong themes in her documentaries have been health and the body in the context of individuals and communities. Her first documentary “Viva Eu!,” which won five international awards, including Best Documentary at Joseph Papp’s Festival Latino in New York, is about the first man diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in Brazil. “Odô Yá! Life with AIDS”, which won seven awards including a special jury prize at FESPACO in Burkina Faso, explores how Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion, became a source of strength and power for a group of AIDS sufferers.
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Paul Pfeiffer

Biography

Paul Pfeiffer was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1966 but spent most of his childhood in the Philippines. Pfeiffer relocated to New York in 1990, where he attended Hunter College and the Whitney Independent Study Program. Pfeiffer’s groundbreaking work in video, sculpture, and photography uses recent computer technologies to dissect the role that mass media plays in shaping consciousness. Pfeiffer is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, and was the inaugural recipient of the Bucksbaum Award, given by the Whitney Museum of American Art (2000). In 2002, Pfeiffer was an artist-in-residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at ArtPace in San Antonio, Texas. In 2003, a traveling retrospective of his work was organized by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Arts Center and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
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Kurt Kuenne

Biography

Kurt Kuenne is an award-winning filmmaker and composer of both fiction and documentary films. He is a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he won the Harold Lloyd Scholarship in Film Editing, and where he also studied film scoring at the USC School of Music under the tutelage of classic film composers Buddy Baker and David Raksin. His first feature, the teen drama “Scrapbook” (1999), landed him on Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Indie Film feature, and he followed it with “Drive-In Movie Memories” (2001), a documentary about outdoor movies which opened the 2001 Telluride Film Festival and played nationally on PBS. In 2002, he won the AMPAS Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for his screenplay “Mason Mule”, while his screenplay “Explode” made the quarterfinals in the same year. He then directed a series of black & white short musical comedies – “Rent-A-Person” (2003),”Validation” (2006), “Slow” (2007), and “The Phone Book” (2008) – which won 40+ awards at 120+ film festivals worldwide. In 2008, he completed his 6 year passion project, the documentary “Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father“, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival. The film was released by Oscilloscope Laboratories and MSNBC Films, was named one of the Top 5 Documentaries of 2008 by the National Board of Review, won numerous awards and placed on more than 40 critics’ lists of the Ten Best Films of 2008. In 2012, PBS POV named it one of the “100 Greatest Documentaries of All Time”. “Dear Zachary” inspired the creation of Bill C-464 in Canadian Parliament, which reformed Canada’s criminal code when it became law on December 15, 2010. (An epilogue chronicling this process – “The Legacy of Dear Zachary: A Journey to Change Law” – was released on the web in 2013.) In 2011, he collaborated for the second time with actor TJ Thyne (“Validation”, “Bones”) on the fiction feature “Shuffle“, a mystery/fantasy about a man who begins experiencing his life out of order, which was released by Screen Media Films and won numerous awards at film festivals worldwide, including the 2013 Frank Capra Award. In 2014, he co-wrote, edited and sound designed the celebrated documentary “Batkid Begins” for his Emmy-winning director pal Dana Nachman. The film premiered once again at the Slamdance Film Festival, won 5 audience awards and was acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line Cinema, who released it theatrically on June 26, 2015. Julia Roberts acquired the film’s remake rights. Kurt has since directed numerous episodes of the hit NBC television show “The Blacklist”, starring James Spader. His work as a composer includes re-scoring the restoration of the silent classic “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1925) and writing the book, music and lyrics for an award-winning stage musical adaptation of the New York Times-bestselling novel “The Looking Glass Wars”. Kurt is managed by Good Fear Film and Management.
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Darryl Virostko

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Darryl "Flea" Virostko (born December 25, 1971) is a professional "big wave" surfer from Santa Cruz, California. He graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1991. He is a three-time Mavericks competition winner. Virostko appears as himself in the surfing films Riding Giants, Step Into Liquid, and Billabong Odyssey. Surfer declared his 2004 wipeout on a 50-foot wave at Waimea Bay, Hawaii, the "Wipeout of the Decade" As of 2009 Virostko is a recovering addict, and runs a program, "FleaHab", to teach other recovering addicts how to surf and be active while learning a new way of life.He starred in The Westsiders a documentary film by Josh Palmer that chronicles his difficult upbringing and addiction to drugs, on the west side of Santa Cruz.
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Kimberly DiPersia

Biography

Kimberly DiPersia is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, with training from The Stella Adler Studio and The Classical Studio. She has also studied at The Maggie Flanigan Studio, Weist-Barron, and UCB. Kimberly has performed in regional and New York theatre, most recently understudying for The Pearl Theatre Company (Off-Broadway). She resides in NYC, is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, and is a founding member and producer of Hanging Charlie Productions, a film production company based out of Astoria, NY.
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James Caan

Biography

James is the founder and CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw, based in Mayfair, London. In 2007 James joined the panel of Dragons’ Den, a hit BBC1 show where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas and hope to gain an investment. In his time on the show he made several high-profile investments including one that ended up being one of the most successful-ever pitches in the Den. More recently, Sky News launched ‘The Pledge’, a weekly discussion programme staring James and a pool of nine other high-profile panellists. Each week five members of the team would appear on the show armed with an issue that they were passionate about. James debated everything from Trump to Brexit.
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Giulia Boschi

Biography

Giulia Boschi (born 17 December 1962) is an Italian film and television actress. Born in Rome, Boschi is the daughter of the television presenter Aba Cercato. She made her film debut in 1984, in Francesca Comencini's Pianoforte, and for this performance she was awarded as best actress at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival. She was also awarded a Silver Ribbon for best new actress. In 1988 she won the Ciak d'oro for best supporting actress in Da grande. Source: Article "Giulia Boschi" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Bianca K. Nuñez

Biography

Bianca K. Nuñez is an Australian writer, director, and actor. Trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, she founded Celestial Light Studios at just 19, establishing a home for gothic and fantastical storytelling. Bianca is the creator of the Ms. Vanguard series, which has amassed over 100,000 online viewers, and the writer-director of her feature directorial debut, The Hermetica, a mother-daughter occult drama. Her producing credits include Break A Leg (selected for SXSW Sydney 2025) and the nationally touring Rise of the Underdog. Bianca is currently attached as the lead of Coco & Ritz, a stylised noir mini-series in development.
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