POV Executive Director Simon KilmurryPOV’s Executive Director Simon Kilmurry shares some exciting news about POV alum Ido Haar.

For those of you close to Westchester County, New York, POV alum Ido Haar, the filmmaker of 9 Star Hotel (POV 2008), will be featured as the third International Filmmaker-in-Residence at Jacob Burns Film Center’s Media Arts Lab in Pleasantville.

9 Star Hotel DVD

Ido is a graduate of Jerusalem’s famous Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, and his films follow a vérité, observational style. He says that he was drawn to filmmaking after a stint in the Israeli army. In a review of 9 Star Hotel, the New York Times wrote that “…Ido Haar draws us into the precarious world of young Palestinian construction workers scrabbling to survive in and around the Israeli city of Modi’in.” You can watch 9 Star Hotel in its entirety online.

Ido will be teaching a course at the Burns Center: “The Israeli Documentary,” for teens and adults starting Oct. 13. Two of his films will be screening as well: the aforementioned 9 Star Hotel (Oct. 12 at 7:30), and Melting Siberia (Nov. 3 at 5:00), which documents the trip that Ido and his mother took to Siberia in search of her father, a Red Army hero who abandoned his wife when she was pregnant.

Find out more about Ido Haar at the Jacob Burns Film Center and Media Lab on the organization’s website.

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Simon served as chief operating officer of American Documentary for six years before assuming the role of executive director in Fall 2006. Since joining AmDoc in 1999, he has played a key role in helping to set strategic direction for the organization and implementing new initiatives, including the Diverse Voices Project, POV's co-production initiative in support of emerging filmmakers; POV's Borders, PBS' Webby Award-winning online series; and True Lives, a second-run series for independent documentaries on public television. In addition, he worked to secure pioneering partnerships with both Netflix and Docurama to expand the distribution opportunities for POV filmmakers and enhance branding for POV Previously, Simon was associate director at Teachers & Writers Collaborative, a nonprofit literary arts and education organization and publisher, where he is now a member of the board of directors. He has also served as a board member and treasurer for Elders Share the Arts and East Harlem Block Schools, and as an informal advisor and funding panel member for other organizations including the New York City Center for Arts Education, the Association for Independent Video and Filmmakers and New York State Council on the Arts. Simon attended the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Columbia University Business School's Institute for Not-for-Profit Management.