Julia Lerman is a Los Angeles–based writer and director. Her and Roja Gashtili's feature film, Rita Mahtoubian Is Not a Terrorist (2015), was selected for Film Independent’s Directing Lab in 2016 and was among five narrative projects chosen for the 2015 Sundance Creative Producing Labs. That same year, they were inaugural fellows in the Tribeca/Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program with their most recently completed short film, The Last Shift(2015). Rita Mahtoubian Is Not a Terrorist also earned a 2015 nomination for the Student Visionary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.