Darius Arash Kamali is a multifaceted leader at the nexus of human rights advocacy, intelligence analysis, and film and media production. His introduction to the arts was as a child actor in the Kanoon Foundation produced 'Look Again', directed by Farshid Mesghali, which won both the Moscow International Film Festival and the Giffoni Children's Film Festival in Italy.
His career as an adult launched in the late 1990s with the founding of the legal-research firm Federal Data Services while a student of Philosophy and Film at UCLA. From there he was head-hunted, through Penn-Chris special projects incubator, which placed him with the International Monitor Institute (IMI), a State Department backed non-governmental organization (NGO). As Senior Analyst at IMI, Kamali gathered and scrutinized visual evidence for the ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) at the Hague. He later advanced to Archive Curator, spearheading the Iraq Desk and building a landmark film archive on global conflicts, war-crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. There, he forged collaborations with Human Rights Watch (the Anfal campaign of ethnic-cleansing and genocide by Saddam Hussein and the Baathist regime), UNTV, the National Security Archive, the International Red Cross, Simon Wiesenthal Center, UNHCR, March Air Force Base and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). IMI became a founding partner of the nascent International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2000, Kamali had a stint as a Lexicon Editor with the search engine Oingo (Applied Semantics), which was acquired by Google, before pivoting to major cable and network television as a writer/researcher and segment, field, and series producer for companies including Linden Productions (King Leopold's Ghost/The Youngest Warrior), Jaffe Productions (Top Secret Missions of the CIA/ Secret Passages), Weller-Grossman (The Kings), Tony Scott's Scott-Free Productions (American Fighter Pilot), World of Wonder Productions (Brilliant but Cancelled), and Gay Rosenthal Productions (Behind the Music). These projects aired on History Channel/A&E, PBS, CBS, Trio, VH1 and the UK's Channel 4. In 2004 he again transitioned, this time into feature animation at Exodus Film Group, where he rose to Vice President, ran a $50M development fund and served as Associate Producer on the Annie Award nominated IGOR, in partnership with Sparx animation out of Paris, and distributed by MGM, TWC, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Showtime 2 (2008/2009), and Apple TV (2026). The film featured the voices of John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Jay Leno, Jennifer Coolidge, Steve Buscemi, Eddie Izzard, Jeremy Piven, John Cleese, Arsenio Hall, Chris Hayes, James Lipton and Christian Slater. IGOR opened as the #1 family film in North-America and played on over 4000 screens worldwide including 32 foreign countries and territories. Following that he co-executive produced 'The Hero of Color City' (distributed through Mark Cuban's Magnolia Pictures & Netflix, 2014 and Apple TV, 2026) starring Christina Ricci, Owen Wilson, Rosie Perez, Craig Ferguson and Wayne Brady; as well as 'Bunyan & Babe' (distributed by Cinedigm & Amazon Prime, 2016, Apple TV 2026) featuring John Goodman, Mark Hamill, Jeff Foxworthy, and Kelsey Grammar. These animated features secured a plethora of licensing partnerships including the a toy and plushie deal with Corgi, trading cards with Upper Deck, comic-books with IDW Publishing, paperbacks with Simon & Shuster, video games with Legacy Games for Nintendo DS and Wii, and fast food partnerships with MacDonalds, Hardees, and Carl's Junior. In 2012, Kamali and writer/ director Jennifer Epps partnered with Triage Capital to establish Gnosis Moving Pictures/Gnosis Media, a $100M development fund dedicated to CG animation. Gnosis Media forged a strategic multi-film partnership with the late Academy Award winning Claymation and stop-motion animation legend Will Vinton (formerly Laika), best known for creating the 'California Raisins' and 'M&M's' commercials. Gnosis signed also announced a long-term co-production/co-finance deal with Toonz Media in India for a slate of its own animated IP. This gave birth in 2015 to TechGnosis, a New Media production company in partnership with Kasey Adller (formerly of Elliot Capital) focused on AR/VR apps and games. Key projects, partnerships and relationships included Relativity Studios & Fox Home Entertainment's 'Earth to Echo' for Apple IOS, MGM Mobile & Social Gaming's 'The Pink Panther's Excellent Adventure,' Twentieth Century Fox's 'Valerian,' as well as Augmented Reality apps for the Smithsonian Institute's Natural History Museum and 7-Eleven Corporation. Beyond production, Kamali is an acclaimed author and podcaster. His debut philosophical poetry collections; "Sacred Cow Tartar", 'Dog Whistling Dixie past the Graveyard,' and 'Mistake of Identity' earned spots among the prestigious Kirkus Review of Book's '25 Best Indie Books' of 2020 and 2021. He has written on the intersection of history, politics and world-affairs for such outlets as 'Open Democracy' and 'Common Dreams,' Kamali's podcast, the 'Persian Version', which delves into ancient and classical history, started as a hobby during the pandemic, but has grown to 15 platforms and has garnered over 150M distinct impressions and plays to date. Member: Producers Guild of America |
Testimonials “An extraordinary producer, executive, writer and above all, a great friend. Darius and I have collaborated on several projects over more years than either of us care to remember! Seldom have I come across someone more gifted and conscientious. He’s wicked smart, and an artist in every sense of the word.”
—Max Howard, Former President, Warner Brothers Feature Animation, Former Vice President, Walt Disney Corporation, Former Producer of DreamWorks Animation "Arash Darius Kamali is an intellect of rare distinction. At our State Department–supported International Monitor Institute, he forged a wide-reaching network through his work as an intelligence analyst, war-crimes researcher, director of special projects, and curator of visual evidence archives. Darius combines humanitarian idealism with indefatigable passion and a deeply cultivated analytical erudition. He’s been an invaluable asset to the work of the Institute and instrumental in our growing partnership with the International Criminal Court."
—Pipa Scott, Co-Founder, Lorimar Productions Chair, International Monitor Institute “I have enjoyed knowing Darius Kamali for many years. We met at a motion picture industry event and quickly discovered a shared interest in producing motion pictures. Darius’s methodology and success in that area was impressive to me. Beyond that, though, we also discovered shared interest in the most important issues of our day. We have had many conversations regarding what constitutes good governance and how to achieve it and, most importantly of all, how to behave ethically at a personal level in a morally complex society.
Darius is a deep thinker and a fine friend.” --George Merkert, CEO, Whisper Pictures, Visual Effects Director, Sony Pictures Imageworks |