Iranian American filmmaker Suzi Yoonessi most recently completed The Spring of Sorrow for ITVS’s FutureStates series, which was released on-line in March 2011. Yoonessi’s award-winning first feature film Dear Lemon Lima (2009) premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival where it received an award for Outstanding Performance. The film went on to receive the Audience Award at the Woodstock Film Festival and Anchorage Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize at the San Francisco Asian Film Festival and several other international awards, including the Milos Macourek Award at the 50th Zlin Film Festival in the Czech Republic. The film traveled through the festival circuit at internationally renowned festivals included BFI’s London International Film Festival, the Rome International Film Festival and the Sao Paulo International Film Festival. The film was developed with the support of an ITVS Feature Development Grant, a FIND Kodak Grant, and a Tribeca Film Institute grant. Dear Lemon Lima was released in several international territories including HBO in Eastern Europe, and Phase 4 Films released the film theatrically in March 2011.

Yoonessi’s short film Dear Lemon Lima (2007) received a National Geographic grant and a Jerome Foundation grant. The film has played internationally in over 70 festivals including the Tribeca Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival. The feature version of Dear Lemon Lima was recognized by the Film Independent Screenwriters, Directors and Producers Labs and Tribeca All Access Connects. Shorts International and Vanguard Cinema distribute Yoonessi’s previous short films Dear Lemon Lima and No Shoulder.

Yoonessi received a Jerome Foundation Grant for Vern (2004), which she wrote, directed, and produced. Vern was a finalist for the Roy W. Dean Foundation Grant, is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and is distributed by the National Film Network.

Yoonessi associate produced the Cannes and Sundance award-winning Me And You And Everyone We Know, written and directed by Miranda July, for IFC Films & Film Four (UK).

Yoonessi received her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute, and her MFA from Columbia University where she was a recipient of the FMI Directing Fellowship. She is currently in pre-production for Radar Pictures How to Date a Prince and the independent comedy Olive and Mocha.