Moze Mossanen

Moze Mossanen is a Canadian independent writer, director and producer who has created a body of critically acclaimed film and TV work blending drama, music, performance and documentary.

Dance for Modern Times (1987) was Mossanen's first feature-length documentary, released theatrically and aired on CBC Television.

During the same year, Mossanen also wrote, produced and directed The Dancemakers, a series of six half-hour programs on contemporary choreographers which aired on the CBC, TVOntario, and on networks in Europe, Asia and Australia.

His next film, The Rings of Saturn, a well-received exploration of desire and loss set within the lives of five urban couples, was broadcast in January 2002 on CBC and Bravo!

The film, which premiered originally on CBC, was selected for competition at the FIPA festival in Biarritz in January 2005 and was nominated for three Gemini Awards.

Meanwhile, Mossanen directed an episode of the Disney comedy Life With Derek, for which he received a Directors Guild of Canada nomination.

In 2013, Mossanen also directed and co-created Rise, a dramatic digital pilot for ABC Spark, which is currently live and online at ABCSpark.ca.

His two most recent projects, both released in 2018, are: My Piece of the City, a feature doc for CBC about youths in the inner city community of Toronto's Regent Park; and the feature documentary You Are Here for HBO Canada about the closing of the US airspace on 9/11 when 38 airliners were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, a story that eventually inspired the Broadway musical Come From Away.

"You Are Here" won the Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary at CineFest in October 2018 and became the highest-rated original program on HBO Canada for the same year.

The New York Times praised the film by saying: "The documentary's emotional power has the same source as "Come From Away" — the poignant knowledge that in a fearful moment, citizens of one nation embraced strangers, sharing what they had to make their visitors feel at home.