Stephanie Ayanian

Stephanie Ayanian is a film producer, director and educator. She is currently screening her feature documentary, What Will Become of Us, a project focusing on Armenian Americans today. She previously produced Kinderwald, an Official Selection of Munich International, Seattle International, Napa Valley, and Slamdance film festivals. Ayanian co-owns Storyshop, an independent production house for creative media. She previously worked as a senior producer/director for Penn State Public Broadcasting where she was the producer and co-director of Liquid Assets: The Story of Our Water Infrastructure, for which she received the American Association of Engineering Societies Award for Journalism. She holds an MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University and a BA in Film and Video from the Pennsylvania State University. She teaches documentary film production at Drexel University. She is a third-generation Armenian American. Her grandparents survived the Armenian Genocide as children. Her bedtime stories were often of her grandmother’s childhood—the Genocide, the kidnapping of her family members, the reuniting, and the refugee camps. She and her husband are raising their children in an Armenian-American home where Armenian music, cuisine, art, and language are intermixed with American culture.