
Person
Iara Lee
Directing
Biography
Iara Lee is a Brazilian film director, producer and activist of Korean descent. From 1984 to 1989, she was the producer of the Sao Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil. From 1989 to 2003, she was based in New York City, where she ran the mixed-media company Caipirinha Productions. She is the founder of Cultures of Resistance Network, an organization that promotes global solidarity through creative resistance and nonviolent action, and the director of Cultures of Resistance Films. At the onset of the Iraq war in 2003, she decided to live in the MENA region in order to understand the conflict from that perspective. She spent extensive time in Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iran. In May 2010, she was a passenger on the MV Mavi Marmara, a vessel in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was attacked in international waters by the Israeli navy, leading to the murder of nine humanitarian aid workers.
Known for

We Are Many
Producer

The Sami Song of Survival: Indigenous Activism on the Northern Frontier
Director
An Autumn Wind
Director

Stalking Chernobyl: Exploration After Apocalypse
2020

K2 & The Invisible Footmen
Director

Modulations
Director

Cultures of Resistance
Director

Synthetic Pleasures
Director

The Women's Colloquium in Liberia
Director

Wantoks: Dance of Resilience in Melanesia
Director
Filmography
- 2025The Sami Song of Survival: Indigenous Activism on the Northern FrontierDirector
- 2023Unite for Bissau (Nô Kumpu Guiné): Agroecology and Feminism in Guinea BissauDirector
- 2020From Trash to TreasureDirector
- 2020Stalking Chernobyl: Exploration After Apocalypse
- 2019Wantoks: Dance of Resilience in MelanesiaDirector
- 2018Burkinabè Rising - The Art of Resistance in Burkina FasoDirector
- 2018Burkinabè BountyDirector
- 2015Life is waiting: referendum and resistance in Western SaharaDirector
- 2015K2 & The Invisible FootmenDirector
- 2014We Are ManyProducer
- 2013Muslimgauze: Chasing the Shadow of Bryn JonesDirector
- 2012The Suffering GrassesDirector
- 2010Cultures of ResistanceDirector
- 2010The Women's Colloquium in LiberiaDirector
- 2010Sierra Leone RisingDirector
- 2009Battle for the XinguDirector
- 1998ModulationsDirector
- 1995Synthetic PleasuresDirector
- 1994An Autumn WindDirector
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