A sucker for history and archives, I wrote and directed this short film reflecting on and celebrating PEN America’s evolution over the past 100 into one of the world’s foremost literary and human rights organizations. Produced in collaboration with Hiker Creative Agency.

Every now and then I need to stop and take in the work I'm a part of at the intersection of art and free expression. Most recently, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer recorded a new arrangement of Leonard Cohen's "Democracy." I asked David Mack to create illustrations for the song and Olga Nunes to bring it all to li in a video. The final piece is at once heartbreaking and hopeful (knowing we have a fight ahead), an accurate reflection of where we are today. We used the video at PEN America for our most successful end-of-year giving campaign that helped break fundraising records and broaden PEN America's audience.

Aiello worked with Director Jacob Krupnick to produce an inspiring promotional video to capture the essence of PEN America's First Edition, Second Thoughts annotated rare book auction held at Christies New York to benefit PEN America. Seventy-five writers and artists have written or drawn directly in a first edition or a significant catalogue of their own work. This is an extraordinary collection: of rare first editions that have in most cases been heavily annotated throughout by the author, and of works of art that take an artist's catalogue or monograph as a starting point.

Aiello worked with director and producer Dara Kell to produce the minidoc for the 2016 PEN Freedom to Write Award winner Ahmed Naji, who was serving a two-year prison term in Egypt for “violating public modesty.” He was charged by state prosecutors after an Egyptian citizen complained that an excerpt from Naji’s book, The Use of Life, had caused him to experience heart palpitations and a drop in blood pressure due to certain sexual content in the story.

Aiello worked with Director and Editor Dara Kell to create a highlight video celebrating 10-year anniversary of the PEN World Voices Festival. Founded in 2005 under the direction of former PEN President Salman Rushdie, the World Voices Festival has hosted more than 1,400 writers from 78 countries, speaking 56 languages in an effort to engage international writers in dialogue about literature, art, and ideas to foster a worldwide literary community.

Aiello Worked with Director and Producer Dara Kell to produce a short video paying tribute to Salman Rushdie, former PEN America President and founder of the PEN World Voices Festival. Rushdie was receiving the 2014 PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award, which honors a writer whose critically acclaimed work has drawn a wide audience and helps us to understand the human condition in original and powerful ways. 

PEN American Center is the largest of the 140+ centers of PEN International, the world’s only international association of writers working to defend free expression and protect persecuted writers. PEN American Center, founded in 1922, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. Aiello worked with Elan Bogarin and Troy Herion to produce a short primer video to showcase the organizations individual human rights advocacy work. Its 3,500 distinguished members carry on the achievements in literature and advancement of human rights of such past members as James Baldwin, Arthur Miller, Susan Sontag, and John Steinbeck.

Grainy flashback to 16mm film school short set to The Jimmy Castor Bunch’s “It’s Just Begun.” Play’n around with in-camera effects and sound design cutting on the old Steenbeck flatbed editors.