Crew Biographies

‘Jay’ Jalal Jonroy (Writer/Director/Producer)

A dual American and British citizen, born in southern Kurdistan (Iraq), multi-lingual Jay Jonroy now lives and works in New York and Paris. He is fluent in English, French and Kurdish, and is conversant in Persian, Arabic and Portuguese. Made stateless and in exile as a teenager, Jonroy studied and worked in London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Rio, Paris and New York. He aspired from an early age to become a film artist.

Two members of Jonroy's family—a younger brother and a brother-in-law—went missing or murdered in Iraq. Later, their remains were found in Ba'athist’s and Saddam's mass graves. Jonroy was obliged to abandon his film projects unfinished for about ten years to help his family escape Saddam's genocidal campaigns against Kurds. Some of those horrors are reflected in his first feature film DAVID & LAYLA.

Either through scholarships or paid for by his own work, he has studied at the universities of Leicester, Imperial College, London, Paris Sorbonne, and UCLA and USC film schools in Los Angeles. After graduating with a rare First Class Honors B.Sc. degree at Leicester University, to the dismay of his professors, Jonroy declined a scholarship to study for a PhD at Churchill College, Cambridge University, in favor of a Masters Degree at Imperial College/London University, so he could live in London. In London, he studied creative photography and worked briefly as a fashion photographer in London and Paris. During that time, and before her royal romance with Prince Andrew, he discovered model Koo Stark. Jonroy also studied 'Acting, Movement and Speech' at the London City Literary Institute.

Once in New York he coached actors for their final year scenes and plays at the renowned 'Circle in the Square’s School of Acting on Broadway. From 1996 to 2000, Jonroy was a volunteer mentoring graduates on their final thesis scripts and films at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

An amateur musician, Jonroy collects ethnic music and has been listed as a Patron of the Arts at New York’s World Music Institute. An occasional art collector, he has loaned works of art to many museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Jonroy supports Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Institute Kurde de Paris, and the World Music Institute. He writes about and promotes the films, music and cultures of oppressed nations and is a free-lance supporter of the Human Rights International Film Festival.

Many of Jonroy’s siblings & relatives now live as refugees in diaspora in England, Holland, Germany, and France. As he describes it, DAVID & LAYLA is a gift, a 'comic relief' to the oppressed Layla's of the world. It's dedicated to the memory of the genocide victim members of his family in Kurdistan.

Gill Holland (Producer)

Spirit Award nominee for Producer of the Year, Gill has worked on over fifty independent films, including Sundance favorites SPRING FORWARD, LOGGERHEADS, triple Sundance Award winner HURRICANE STREETS, the FOX sit-com GREG THE BUNNY, the 2006 Spirit Award winner SWEETLAND and the Emmy-nominated DEAR JESSE. He was the first filmmaker to read and appreciate the potential of DAVID & LAYLA’s script in 2001 (before the political flotsam and jetsam of 9/11). He produced three volumes of cineBLAST!, the short film compilation. He is a principal partner at The Group Entertainment, the KY/NYC management/production company, and a consultant to the principal investor of DAVID & LAYLA, Films International Corp.

Half-Norwegian, half North Carolinian, a lawyer and former adjunct professor at NYU Graduate Film School, Gill worked at the French Film Office before embarking full-time in his career as a producer. He has been on the jury for shorts at Sundance and on the selection committee for the Academy Awards’ Student Division. The stable of talent on his record label, sonaBLAST!, features Kelley McRae, The Old Ceremony and Irish star Mark Geary.

Isen Robbins & Aimaa School (Producers)

Intrinsic Value Films was founded by Isen Robbins and Aimee Schoof in 1997.
The two partners have produced over twenty films which have participated in many film festivals, both in the U.S. and abroad, including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, and Rotterdam;
six of their efforts premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Their films have been
nominated for two Gotham Awards and four Indie Spirit Awards.

Intrinsic Value projects currently in post production include THE ALPHABET KILLER, directed by Rob Schmidt and starring Eliza Dushku, Cary Elwes and Timothy Hutton, THE SKEPTIC
starring Tim Daly, Tom Arnold and Zoe Saldana, and THE ATTIC, directed by Mary
Lambert, and starring Elisabeth Moss, Jason Lewis and John Savage.

Previous Intrinsic Value titles include MISSING IN AMERICA (2004) starring Danny Glover,
Linda Hamilton, Ron Perlman and David Stratharin (First Look Releasing), SHOOTING LIVIEN (2004) starring Jason Behr, Sarah Wynter, Dominic Monaghan, Joshua Leonard and Ally Sheedy (TLA Releasing, Showtime), SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER (2003) by Jeff Leiberman (Squirm, Blue Sunshine, Remote Control) starring Amanda Plummer and Katheryn Winnick (Universal/Screen Gems), Sundance Special Grand Jury Prize and Gordon Parks Screenwriting Award winner BROTHER TO BROTHER (2003) starring Anthony Mackie, Roger Robinson, Larry Gillard, Anjanue Ellis, ANOTHING BUT LOVE starring Isabel Rose, Andrew McCarthy, and Eartha Kitt, (2003) (Samuel Goldwyn, Wellspring, Starz, Lifetime, Showcase International) DEATH OF A DYNASTY (2003) by Damon Dash starring Jay-Z, Rob Stapleton, Devon Aoki, Capone; Tribeca Film Festival '03, (TLA Releasing and Luna International), THE HEBREW HAMMER (2002) starring Adam Goldberg, Andy Dick and Mario Van Peebles for Content Films; (2003 Sundance Film Festival, Comedy Central and Strand Release 03), XX/XY (2001) starring Mark Ruffalo and Kathleen Robertson; Sundance Dramatic Competition, (IFC Films, MGM video, Senator International), and BEYOND THE OCEAN (1999) Sundance ‘00 Dramatic Competition, a Searchparty Films release.

Harlan Bosmajian (Director of Photography)

Harlan Bosmajian was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He began his fascination with photography at an early age. Throughout high school, still photography was his form of self- expression. This interest continued throughout his Undergraduate studies at Western Washington University where he received a BA in English and Visual Communication.    

Bosmajian began a career as a professional photographer in Seattle working as an assistant to various commercial photographers while establishing his own studio. He held various shows at local galleries including Seattle’s prestigious Benham Studios. While he became technically proficient at still photography, it didn’t seem a sufficiently passionate career choice. Cinematography became his new passion, which was nurtured as a New York University graduate film program student. Bosmajian spent the next four years learning the basic craft of cinematography and during that time shot over twenty short films. By the time he graduated he had assembled a reel of work that he used as a calling card for work on low-budget features and commercials.

His first successful film was LA CIUDAD (THE CITY) which played festivals all over the world and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography, and won Best Cinematography at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Bosmajian then went on to shoot a television series for Comedy Central, STRANGERS WITH CANDY, the first narrative TV series to use the High Definition video format. That ground-breaking work led to his being Nicole Holofcener’s choice for LOVELY & AMAZING, one of the first dramatic feature films shot on High-Def to be theatrically released. Other credits include SAVING FACE, WINTER SOLSTICE and another Comedy Central series, STELLA. Bosmajian has shot films in the United States, the Dominican Republic and India. He now has twenty-five feature films to his credit. His most recent projects include the Sundance Film Festival entry STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING and the Plum Pictures production LIFE IN FLIGHT.

John Lissauer (Music)

John Lissauer has composed and conducted music for over a dozen feature films including MANAGUA, APARTMENT 1303 and DAVID & LAYLA, as well as for a host of short films and documentaries. He has also orchestrated, arranged and conducted the scores for many features such as SEVEN and THAT THING YOU DO. During the past twenty years John has conducted some of the world's greatest orchestras in London, Paris, Prague, New York and Los Angeles. He has scored three successful TV series and has been the composer-in-residence for the highly acclaimed Westchester Jazz Orchestra. He has taught music Composition at Yale University and teaches a select group of young composers in the art of film scoring. He lives and records at his

farm in Westchester. The Katonah Mill Studio is a state-of-the-art complex where John records all but the largest of his film scores. He is currently at work scoring REPEATING IDENTITY, a futuristic thriller.

Richard Horowitz (Music)

Richard Horowitz’s film credits include THE SHELTERING SKY (Bernardo Bertolucci - Golden Globe and LA Film Critics Music Awards for Best Original Score), ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (Oliver Stone - BMI Award), THREE SEASONS (Tony Bui -Sundance Audience and Jury Awards), LOCOTA WOMAN (Frank Pierson/ Jane Fonda), L'ATLANTIDE (Bob Swaim), and LIFE WITHOUT DEATH (Frank Cole -Naris Award). He has recently completed the score for the film LES AMANTS DE MOGADOR starring Max Von Sydow

He is the founding artistic director of the Gnaoua Music Festival in Essaouira Morocco and was nominated for the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Goddard Liberson Award by Paul Bowles in 1982. He has recorded and performed with vocalist Sussan Deyhim since the early eighties. Their recordings and multimedia operas include Majoun (Sony Classical) Azax/Attra:Desert Equations, The Ghost of Ibn Sabbah and The Gift of Love (Deepak Chopra/Mother Teresa). He also collaborated with Deyhim and Shirin Neshat on the multimedia production Logic of the Birds produced by Lincoln Center, Art Angel in London and The Ortiga Festival in Siracusa Sicily. He is currently working on a new opera with Deyhim: Zarathustra's Mother and is producing cheky Karyo's first recording for Universal Music France. He has also worked with Jon Hassell, David Byrne, Jaron Lanier Duncan Sheik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Michael Brook, Hassan Hakmoun, Branford Marsalis, Hector Zazu, Doug Wimbish, Will Calhoun, Gram Haynes, Suzanne Vega, Steve Shehan, Marius Devries, Rufus Wainwright, Mickey Hart, Adrian Sherwood, Frank Serafine, and Bill Laswell.

Zulema Griffin (Costume Designer)

Fashion Designer Zulema Griffin began her career in fashion as a Ford model. Working with renowned photographers such as Peter Lindberg, Steven Klein, Marc Baptiste and Nina Schultz, Griffin appeared in such publications as Bazaar, The Face, I.D., Essence, Interview and Paper. Although Griffin enjoyed a successful career as a model, she decided to opt for life behind the runway.

In June of 2001, Griffin found herself successfully running the costume department of her first film, a feature titled LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, directed by Nick Gregory. The director of photography was impressed with Griffin’s ability and recommended her for the film THE BEATLE FAN, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. Since 2001, Griffin has worked on film with actors such as Adreian Grenier, Rhea Perlman, Barabara Hershey, Emily Deschanel, Douglas Smith, Willie Garson, Peter Stromare, Erik Estrada, Victoria Rowell, and Leile Arcieri.