Congratulations to Film Production grad Mohammad Gorjestani, whose VFS film The Shade is screening at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival later this month! The film will screen five times between April 26 and May 5, so if you’re in New York, you really have absolutely no excuse to not check it out on the big screen.

For the rest of us:

So, Mo, what do you hope the reaction to the film will be?

“I hope people watch the film and enjoy it and walk out of it thinking something new or different about their own lives. To me that would be the ideal response.”

Tell us about what it was like to shoot VFS’s first-ever film in Farsi.

“My fellow classmates worked so hard on this project from start to finish, and put forth a pure and positive interest in helping put the story on the screen. It meant a great deal to me to have the school believe in doing a film in Farsi, given that they had never done that before and that I was the only Farsi speaking student in our class. It’s great to see a school like VFS embrace and take positive risks in the hopes and belief that good films founded in good and diverse ideas will be made.”

Yep. It’s a good day for film.

Fun Facts About The Shade & the Tribeca Film Festival:

• The Shade is the first VFS film to be shot in Farsi, and only the second to be shot entirely in another language, after Gregoire Bedard‘s Alibi Inc.

• The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 by Robert DeNiro in response to the 9/11 attacks and their impact on New York.

• As of the writing of this post, The Shade is the featured film on the VFS YouTube channel.

• This Friday, The Shade producer Jessica Greenwood will be presented with the inaugural CTC/Clever Women Award for Outstanding Female Filmmaker of the Year (complete with $2500 prize to put toward her next project!). Congratulations, Jessica… and to everyone who contributed to The Shade.