LOOK3 Recap

I'd like to welcome Matthew McAllister to the blog. Matthew is a project management intern this summer and we're excited to have him on board! -Jessica The MediaStorm crew got back from the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph a little over a week ago and we’re still processing the amazing experience we had! LOOK3 is hosted in Charlottesville, Virginia and gathers photographers from across the country and around the world. As a new intern with MediaStorm, it was quite a way to start the summer! Speakers included Antonin Kratochvil, Massimo Vitali, Sally Mann and Nan Goldin. Additional talks covered a wide range of topics from a discussion with Steve McCurry on how he got the now infamous National Geographic cover photo of Sharbat Gula, to the showing of a video piece about high school Proms by Martin Bell and Mary Ellen Mark. Everyone walked away from each and every session inspired and…

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MediaStorm welcomes Shameel Arafin

We are excited to have Shameel Arafin joining MediaStorm as a Developer. Shameel is a web-application architect, back-end developer, database wrangler, and system administrator. He studied engineering and literature at Caltech and Harvard. Following college, he worked in investment banking during the (first) dotcom boom, at Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse First Boston. After five years on Wall Street, he returned to his engineering roots and joined the team at Massify as a developer and project manager, where he helped launch a social network and crowd-sourcing web application for the film and TV industry. In 2008 he co-founded SignalFive, where where he developed projects that varied from the Repower America Wall (for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection), to PopStay, a social tool for vacation rentals and home swapping.

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Human Rights Watch International Film Festival hosts New York Premier of ‘The Price of Sex’

Filmmaker and Photographer Mimi Chakarova is hosting the New York Premiere of her film The Price of Sex at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival this month. Intimate and revealing, The Price of Sex is a feature-length documentary about young Eastern European women who have been drawn into a world of sex trafficking and abuse. It is a story told by the young women who refused to be silenced by shame, fear, and violence. Emmy-nominated photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes us on a personal journey –exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe. Filming undercover and gaining extraordinary access, Chakarova illuminates how even though some women escape to tell their stories, sex trafficking thrives. The film is showing on: Friday June 24, 9:30 pm Saturday June 25, 3:30 pm Sunday June 26, 1:30 pm At the Film Society of…

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MediaStorm launches African Air by George Steinmetz

Flying in a motorized paraglider over one of the most diverse continents in the world, George Steinmetz captures the stunning beauty of Africa's landscapes and people. His pictures, taken over 30 years, show not only the spectacular patterns of the land, but also the potential and hope that the continent encompasses. Watch African Air.

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Refugees United and MediaStorm launch “Lost and Found: The Story of Refugees United”

Refugees United commissioned MediaStorm to create a documentary that both told the story of Refugees United, as well as chronicled the lives of refugees that are currently separated from their family. They wanted to portray the universality of the issue that they deal with and show the heartache and struggle these people face as they are separated from and searching for their lost loved ones. Following the lives of four refugees and how separation from loved ones has shaped their existence, “Lost and Found: The Story of Refugees United” is a journey into the hardships so many families must endure as they seek to reconnect.

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