Albanian born Iris Elezi studied film theory and criticism, anthropology and women's studies before completing her film production studies at New York University in 2001./ Her editing and directing skills on the award-winning six-part documentary series Under Construction _, premiered at the prestigous Karlovy Vary film festival and won the Fedeora critics award. Bota also triumphed in the Reykjavik Intl. Film Festival, winning both the Fipresci and the Audience Award./ Iris Elezi lives and works in the Albanian capital of Tirana where she teaches film history and analysis./ Together with archivist Regina Longo and partner, Thomas Logoreci, they co-founded The Albanian Cinema Project, an initiative that aims at restoring and raising awareness about the endangered Albanian National Film Archive./ She also conducted a 90 minute masterclass with Francis Ford Coppola during Durres International Summerfest 2011 and weekly masterclasses during Dokufest 2011 with Mohsen Makhmalbaf and James Longley among others.
