About the Director

“With an American father and an Iranian mother, Dustin Ellis grew up learning about two different cultures. His favorite childhood memories include watching cartoons, and holiday specials such as a Charlie Brown Christmas. Through the years, Dustin followed his passion of cartoons with a career in animation. He started at Warner Brothers with Brad Bird, director of “The Incredibles”. Later, he had the chance to work with Universal, Nickelodeon and Dreamworks on projects such as "The Rugrats Movie", the “Iron Giant” and “Osmosis Jones”. Coming e full circle, Dustin decided to finally create a holiday special for the Iranian community, focusing on Norooz, the Persian New Year. He began working on the story in early 2004 and carefully assembled the most skilled professionals from the industry. Midway through production, Dustin formed Norooz Productions to work on “Babak and Friends - A First Norooz”, aptly named because it was, indeed, a first of a kind!

Materials are reprinted with the permission of Norooz Productions and PersianMirror.com
Copyright 2004-2005