Rachel Gandin Mark, Program Director, Co-Principal Investigator

Rachel Gandin Mark is Director of International Programs at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She oversees two major U.S. State Department grant programs and several global media partnerships for the school. She is the Program Director of the American Film Showcase (AFS), the premiere film and TV diplomacy program of the American government, and the Co-Founder of the Middle East Media Initiative (MEMI), an innovative exchange program training top Arab TV writers and producers. She has initiated educational partnerships for the school with the teams at Netflix’s Grow Creative and Walt Disney’s Global Public Policy. Previously, Rachel was the sole producer of Disney’s first Arabic-language feature, The United, released internationally in 2013, served for many years as Creative Consultant for the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab in Jordan, and founded the Arab Film Festival in Los Angeles.