Broadcasting from the LA Film Festival, BYOD spotlights some of the most lauded documentaries that have everybody talking. First we speak meet with Til Schauder and Kevin Sheppard, the director and subject of The Iran Job-a very entertaining account of a western basketball player taking a contract to play professionally in Iran. The discussion illuminated some of the bewildering circumstances that go along with working in one of the world’s most shadowy nations.
Then we speak to the makers of Call Me Kuchu, the story behind the struggle for gay rights in the hostile grounds of Uganda. An inspirational tale of life and death.
From all over the festival, it is a great light on what is going on in docs today.

Till Schauder, Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Co-Editor: Till got his start in Germany where he wrote and directed the award winning films STRONG SHIT, and CITY BOMBER. After earning a government grant for the arts he made his U.S. debut with the romantic comedy SANTA SMOKES which won several international awards, among them Best Director at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the Studio Hamburg Newcomer Award. DUKE’S HOUSE, about Duke Ellington’s Harlem home premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. For THE IRAN JOB, Till ran one of the most successful Kickstarter crowd funding campaigns of all time together with his producing partner (and wife) Sara Nodjoumi. Through his company Partner Pictures Till writes, directs, shoots and produces for television and film. He has a side career in acting where he occasionally is cast in shows like HBO’s Mildred Pierce or a national American Express campaign. Till is a graduate of the University of Television and Film, Munich. He teaches film classes at NYU and has been a guest lecturer at various other campuses. He has also been invited to serve on film festival juries and panels, e.g. at the Munich Intl. Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Bahamas Intl. Film Festival

Katherine Fairfax Wright graduated from Columbia University with a double major in Film Studies and Anthopology. She produced Gabi On The Roof In July, which premiered at Cinequest 2010, and won Best Narrative at the Brooklyn Film Festival. Wright has worked closely with Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, Nelson Walker III, and Fellipe Barbosa. She associate-produced Perlmutt and Walker’s award-winning documentary Lumo, which aired on P.O.V., as well as Perlmutt’s Les Vulnerables, the closing short at the New York Film Festival 2007. Wright has worked in a producing role on several other films and she is an award-winning photographer. She is a Chaz & Roger Ebert Directing Fellow, and an alumnus of the Film Independent Documentary Lab and the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant.

Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s work as a print and video journalist has been published in The Financial Times and at CNN.com. She has reported for CNN.com from India, Uganda, China and the U.S. on politics, technology and LGBT rights. Zouhali-Worrall is a graduate of Cambridge University and holds an MA in International Affairs from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po). She is also a Chaz & Roger Ebert Directing Fellow, and an alumnus of the Film Independent Documentary Lab and the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant.