JAVAAD ALIPOOR (THE BELIEVERS ARE BUT BROTHERS - WRITER AND CO-DIRECTOR)

Javaad’s work is grounded in his political and social commitments, and he has first-hand experience of the government’s anti-terror strategies, as well as working with the struggle for democracy in the Middle East.  He contributed to Arun Kundani’s research for The Muslims Are Coming and was a vocal critic of the PREVENT strategy, at a national and international level.  He is a founding member of the Alliance in Support of Iranian Workers, an activist with Syria Solidarity UK and has contributed chapters to two books about the Arab Spring.  He will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the Syrian Revolution by the award winning Esperanza Productions. Javaad Alipoor is a mixed race writer and director based in Bradford. He is Associate Director at Theatre in the Mill, as well as Artistic Director of Northern Lines, a company that specialises in making work with and for hard to reach Muslim and BAME communities. His work has always sought to bring the cosmopolitanism and political provocations that growing up with Middle Eastern refugees and political exiles has instilled in him, tackling the big international political questions in a way that ties them to the here and now.  His work as a writer/director has included Hurr (a play that told the story of the Abu Ghraib scandal through a traditional Persian mourning play), My Brothers Country (The ARC, Theatre in the Mill, The Lowry) that told the story of the murder of the Iranian dissident and pop singer Ferydoun Farrokhzad and The Rising of the Moon. He was previously commissioned by Bradford Festival 2015 to make a promenade piece about the Chartists risings in West Yorkshire. As a freelance writer he has written commissions including an adaptation of the revolutionary children’s stories of Samad Behrangi.  His most recent freelance directing work was for Sheffield Theatre Trust, directing James Graham’s Bassett for their young company.