Cast/Crew Bios

Cast

DAVID DELAO (Shakil) was born in Alpine, Texas. He got his BFA in Theater at Sul Ross State University. In addition to his work on stage he has been in several feature and short films including Brad Osborne’s Chariot  and Meredith Danluck’s North of South, West of East which screened at Sundance 2013.

JACOB FIGUEROA (Brother Bilal) had his first starring role in Samuel R. Barrera’s short film A Few Tales of Hard Times: The Name. He followed with a starring role in Tricia Woodgett’s feature film Circles, which premiered at the 2013 Pan African Film Festival.  

TORENCE WHITE (Omar) has been acting a fool his whole life, but he started acting professionally in 2005. He was recently in an episode of Unusual Suspects, a crime re-enactment show on Investigation Discovery as well as in an episode of Dallas. He is represented by The Atherton Group out of Austin.

VICKY ILLK (Porn Star) has played leading roles in several feature films, web series, and shorts. She co-produced and starred in Miceal O’Donnell’s Simple. She is a founding member of the all-female comedy troupe Pretty Witty and has written and produced several of their live sketches and video segments. She is most proud of her performances in O’Donnell’s Bye Bye Betsy and David Kirtland’s Homelicide.

SAN THOMISON (Christian Fanatic) is a musician and actor residing in Austin, TX. He has played guitar and sang in multiple bands over the years, and currently plays in an Austin-based honky tonk band. Pornistan is his second time working with Asad Kirmani after having starred in the short film, Stress Freud.

Crew

ASAD KIRMANI is a Writer/Director and a practicing psychiatrist in Austin, TX. While in medical school he produced and directed a film, All the Wrong Reasons, a full-length comedy feature about a hapless young medical student.  While doing his psychiatric residency in New York City he produced and directed Curing Gender, a documentary about the history of psychiatry and transsexuality that has been used educationally by a number of hospitals and institutions across the country, and was shown at the 2013 American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Last summer he wrote and directed his first short film, Stress Freud.

JOHN MOORE, our Producer, got his start on Hector Martinez’s Rebellious Children of the Unconscious as a production assistant under Production Manager Charles Mulford. He worked with Mulford again on Bastian Gunther’s Headhunter. He has done freelance work for Invodo creating web advertisements for Verizon. He co-produced a short film by Christian Remde, The Layover, along with Asad Kirmani’s Stress Freud. Most recently, he was working as a PA on a multiple-month shoot on the reality TV show, Buying and Selling, through Cineflix productions which airs on HGTV.

CHASE CHESNUTT is a Cinematographer who earned his BS from the University of Texas at Austin’s Radio/TV/Film program. He has worked on numerous short films and features, including Wade McDonald’s Hold Your Peace. He has worked on commercials for Chase Bank and car2go, and, recently, camera operated a music video for Ben Kweller.

BLAKE SKAGGS is an Editor who has worked on a number of narrative films, documentaries, commercials, reality tv, sitcoms, web series, music videos. Most recently, he was Assistant Editor on the SXSW audience award winning film Zero Charisma and edited Dana Falconberry's "Please Sparrow" music video which was featured in the May issue of SPIN magazine.  

GREG ARMSTRONG, Location Sound Mixer/Sound ReRecording Mixer, has a dual passion for both production and post-production sound. A  2006 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Radio/TV/Film, he has worked on over 150 commercial, short and feature length productions since 2005, with works that have appeared on HBO, IFC and PBS, and played in numerous film festivals including Sundance, SxSW and Tribeca.  His most recent production works include Season 4 of the Travel Channel’s Food Paradise, and Terrence Malick's recent untitled production formerly known as Lawless.