THE BOUZIANE SISTERS, Yasmina and Anissa are two New York-based filmmakers of Moroccan and French background, whose artistic collaboration extends beyond film into photography, video, and writing. Their most recent project, Talking to Stan, a 35mm Black & White short film, was directed by Yasmina, written by Anissa, and produced by both sisters. The film tells the story of an Off-Broadway actress who rethinks her life as she confronts the ghost of Stanislavski.

Yasmina and Anissa's video work, which includes, Yellow Nylon Rope, a first prize winner in the neo-ethnographic category at the 1994 Berkley Video Festival, and Imaginary Homelands, has used text, image and performance to explore issues of identity and gender in a cross cultural context-a space, which when referring to the distance between the Arab World and the West, can seem like a "chasm, which nobody can bridge" (as stated by the central figure in Imaginary Homelands).

Le Regard, and Ali Baba: Hollywood and Paris at Their Best are two of Yasmina's videos which are included in her latest installation piece entitled: Inhabited by Imaginings We Did Not Chose. Art Papers said of Yasmina's installation, that her work "shatters borders, provokes response and creates dialogue ... [it is]complex... [and]... delightfully surprising." The photographs in this installation will soon be the subject of an upcoming book featuring an introduction by Professor Gyatri Spivak.

Recently Anissa has been reading/performing passages from her soon to be completed novella, Fragments from a Transparent Page, to enthusiastic audiences gathered on the New York, Lower-East Side coffee house circuit. Crowds have found the work uplifting and inspiring, while it shatters the conventional image of Arab-Muslim women and points the way towards new blue prints.

YASMINA BOUZIANE holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in Photography and Video, a Certificate in Film from New York University, a BA from Hampshire College, and is a graduate of the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in New York City. Additionally, she studied art history and film theory at La Sorbonne, in Paris, France.

ANISSA BOUZIANE holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia University in the City of New York, a Certificate in Film from New York University, and a BA from Wellesley College. She worked for several years as a Staff Developer teaching writing in the public schools in Harlem, Queens, and the South Bronx. She was an Associate Producer for WBAI-Radio Pacifica, New York City.

Anissa and Yasmina are currently working together on their first feature film.