Shadow of the Holy Book

Kevin Frazier is an American lawyer and writer, and the co-screenwriter of Shadow of the Holy Book. He received his law degree from the University of Virginia, worked as a lawyer in Los Angeles for five years, and has lived in Helsinki, Finland, since 1996. Frazier is the author of three nonfiction books and a novel, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2005.

Arto Halonen has directed numerous films, including the documentaries Shadow of the Holy Book, Pavlov’s Dogs, Conquistadors of Cuba, The Stars’ Caravan, and Karmapa: Two Ways of Divinity.

In 2005 Halonen was awarded the Finland Prize, the highest annual prize in the arts given by the Ministry of Culture and the state. In 1998 he received the European Humanitarian Award, and in 2008 the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival honored him as one of the most important documentary filmmakers of his generation. Halonen is also the founder and the first festival director of DocPoint - Helsinki Documentary Film Festival.

Lisa Misol is a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch's Business and Human Rights Program. Misol joined HRW in 1998 on a one-year fellowship to work on arms trade issues, which then led to a researcher position in HRW's Arms Division. In 2004 she moved to HRW’s Business and Human Rights Program.

She has carried out field investigations for HRW in about a dozen countries on four continents and published numerous reports. Her current research interests include the human-rights impacts of corruption and economic mismanagment and the involvement of militaries in business. Misol also engages in extensive advocacy, including an effort to advance global human-rights standards for business.

Misol graduated from Duke University and holds a master’s degree from the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Farid Tuhbatullin is a former political prisoner and currently the director of the independent Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, based in Vienna.

An environmentalist and civic leader from Dashoguz, he was arrested in December 2002 on politically motivated charges and sentenced in an unfair trial to three years of imprisonment in Turkmenistan's notorious gulag, but was amnestied under international pressure in 2003. He is now a political refugee in Austria, where he has become one of the leading voices for human rights in Turkmenistan.