Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian Ph.D (she/they) is a filmmaker, Designer of Experiences and Creative Director with over a decade of experience working to document and build platforms that support plurality, the creation of organised communities and impossible productions, public events, expeditions and projects with socio-political impacts. Nelly directed and produced five feature-length films: The International Space Orchestra, 2013; Disaster Playground, 2015; I am (not) a Monster, 2019; Tour de Moon (2023) which have screened at film festivals such as SXSW, CPH DOX, BFI London Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Goteborg Film Festival, and many more. She is also the founder and director of the International Space Orchestra, the world’s first orchestra of NASA space scientists and astronauts; founder of the tuition-free university University of the Underground, which includes board members and activists like Prof. Noam Chomsky, Pussy Riot and Prof. Arjun Appadurai. This tuition-free educative and cultural program is supporting plurality of thinking, free and transnational teaching and unconventional practices in the basement of nightclubs since 2017. Nelly is known for challenging institutions from within through her films and events, and she has done so at the United Nations, NASA, International Academy of Astronautics, or the International Astronautical Federation amongst others. Nelly is a Designer of Experiences at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, Senior Fellow of the Hannah Arendt Centre for Politics and Humanities, Vice-Chair of the International Astronautical Federation Technical Committee on the Cultural Utilization of Space, and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence permanent committee amongst others. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian is one of the founding members of the IDEA committee at the IAF (Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Administrative Committee). She founded and runs the Space Culture and Decolonial Space session at the International Astronautical Congress. Nelly and her doppelgängers are working across borders in Algiers, Yerevan and London. Nelly's latest film, called Doppelgangers 3, draws on the experience of diasporas to challenge the commercialisation of the moon.
Cinerebels award category which honors directors of format-busting and experimental films.
Doppelgängers³
Munich Film Festival
Munich
2024
Outstanding feature doc award and audience award
Doppelgängers³
Frameline
San Francisco
2024
Finalist, Best documentary
Doppelgängers³
Oakcliff film festival
Dallas, texas
2024
Vision Award finalist- This award selection promotes audacious filmmakers, risk-taking artists in the new cinema landscape who demonstrate raw innovation and creativity in documentary and narrative filmmaking.
Doppelgängers³
SXSW
Austin, Texas
2024
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