Director / Writer Dana Ziyasheva Talks About 'Defenders of Life'
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.

Kristine Opolais “gives a vocally lustrous and achingly vulnerable performance” (New York Times) in the role that helped launch her international career, the mythical Rusalka, who sings the haunting “Song to the Moon.” Director Mary Zimmerman brings her wondrous theatrical imagination to Dvořák’s fairytale of love and longing, rejection and redemption, giving the work “an inspired staging” (Huffington Post). Brandon Jovanovich, Jamie Barton, Katarina Dalayman, and Eric Owens complete “a matchless cast” (New York Times), and Sir Mark Elder conducts “a magnificent rendering of the composer’s lush score (Huffington Post).
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.
I hadn’t heard of it either until recently—and yet, it’s one of the highest grossing movies of all time.
Movies also have the ability to make the audience think deeper about an issue that plagues society. "Blindspotting" does that without shying away from the intense reality of police brutality and racial discrimination.
After the untimely death of his brother by way of an ambush in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the protagonist, ‘81’(Alan Ritchson) unsuccessfully makes several attempts to become an Army Ranger. On his last mission to complete the Ranger selection process he and his squad encounter an otherworldly ‘soldier’.
An enchanted school for young heroes and villains brings the battle between good and evil in this fantasy movie.