Q&A producer Shant Mardirossian, writer/producer George Billard, and professor David Gutman moderated by Melanie La Rosa

Thursday, Oct. 19 2017, 7:30

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Executive producer Shant Mardirossian is a Partner and the Chief Operating Officer at a leading U.S. middle-market private equity firm.  He is a graduate of the Lubin School of Business at Pace University and holds a B.B.A. in Public Accounting and an M.B.A. with dual concentration in Investment Management and Strategic Management. His grandparents were all survivors of the Armenian Genocide and his paternal grandmother sought refuge in an American orphanage. They were the inspiration for the film.

George Billard an award-winning producer, writer, director and cinematographer. To date he has helmed productions in over forty countries. His work includes commercials, television, documentaries and film. In addition to They Shall Not Perish, he is currently in production on Amateur, a documentary film about amateur cagefighters in New York, and They Call Me Killer, a documentary about an unusual state executioner. His original screenplay, Dispossessed was awarded the Grand Prize for Best Screenplay at the 2015 Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Assistant professor of history David Gutman arrived at Manhattanville after completing his Ph.D. at Binghamton University. His teaching interests include the history of the modern Middle East, global history, social and political movements, and migration. His research interests revolve around the politics of migration and migration control, the intersection of mobility and citizenship, the social and political history of Ottoman peripheries, and Ottoman Armenians in the last decades of empire.

Melanie La Rosa is an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened at festivals around the world and broadcast nationwide. Her cinematic work has primarily opted for a documentarian approach that promotes social activism, and has been recognized with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, The Eastman Fund, The Puffin Foundation, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. She also worked as a producer with the NPR radio program "Latino USA" and the PBS series "America By the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa." She is currently working on her third feature-length documentary entitled How to Power a City. Melanie is a professor of media production at Pace University in Pleasantville, and lives in Queens, NY.