Rima Mismar The executive director of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). Before she was film programmes manager and later deputy director of AFAC. Rima used to be a professional film critic before joining AFAC, she completed her studies in Communication Arts (Radio/TV/Film emphasis) at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut. She began her career as a film reviewer and journalist at local newspapers and cultural supplements, focusing on cinema, before pursuing her professional career as a film critic. Rima was repeatedly seated as jury member at international festivals and as a member of the selection committee, and as moderator and consultant for film and contributed to film & TV productions.

Claudia is a German-Palestinian programmer and producer. After completing film studies, Arabic studies and philosophy at Gutenberg University Mainz, she worked for several film production and distribution companies in Berlin. In 2015, she produced the short fiction film “Dry Hot Summers” (by S. Elbendary) and was an associate producer for the documentary “Egyptian Jeanne d’Arc” (by N. Kamel, 2016). She is a co-founder and the main programmer of the Arab Film Festival in Berlin ALFILM and currently works for a production company in Berlin. Between 2015-2017 Claudia was the coordinator of DOX BOX Academy film library and Mapping Arab Documentary.

Barbara Toennieshen is a German film editor, with several awards and special mentions in editing. She edited award winning documentaries and fiction such as the “Green Wave” 2010.

Eva-Maria Weertz is a German producer. She has a degree from Deutsche Film- und Fernseh-Akademie Berlin. She is an alumni of the IDFA Academy. Her portfolio of productions combines German and international co-produced projects for the cinema and television.

Nihal recently finished her MBA from the Berlin University for Applied Sciences (HTW) majoring in lean management. She worked on the first data gathering and initial analysis for the project “Data is Beautiful” in 2017. She is currently a research assistant and note-taker at DOX BOX where she assists in researching studies related to the Arab documentary industry.

Khaled is a Lebanese journalist. He began his career at the Lebanese daily As-Safir. He was the deputy Editor-in-Chief of the daily Al-Akhbar until 2011. Between 2012 and 2015, Khaled worked as Editor-in-Chief of the news department at the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI). Khaled received his MA in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is currently an instructor at the Media Studies program at the American University of Beirut.

Moncef is an independent filmmaker specializing in sound engineering. Since early 2000, he has worked as a sound recordist and engineer on several creative documentaries and author-driven fiction films, such as “Sacrifices” and “We Were Still Communists”. He is one of the founders of  ATAC Filmmaker Association in Tunisia and a filmmaking production collective in Tunisia.

Layla is a statistics student at the Technical University of Dortmund, where she works as a research assistant and as a tutor. Before leaving her native Syria for Germany in 2010, Layla worked as an assistant social worker for Help e.V., a German NGO operating in the country at the time. In 2009, Layla started translating documentaries and assisting with the coordination of the DOX BOX international Documentary Film Festival in Syria. She currently works for Blicke, an independent film festival in Bochum, Germany.

Anders Østergaard focuses exclusively on the genre of documentary film. Østergaard’s preferred approach involves both observational and expository documentary types and often draws on a mix of archival material and new recordings, combining a sense of documentary authenticity with psychological intimacy. “Burma VJ – Reporting from a Closed Country” (2008) marked Østergaard’s international breakthrough. For this film he received an Oscar nomination and took home a record-breaking number of international awards. “1989” (2014), about the fall of the Iron Curtain, opened CPH:DOX. In 2015 Østergaard received the Danish Dreyer Award as recognition for his extraordinary artistic work in the Danish film business.

Khalil Benkirane graduated in Film studies from the San Francisco State University in 1995. He was appointed Artistic Director and then Executive Director of the Arab Film Festival, Cinemayaat, in San Francisco from 1998 to 2002. He then moved to Morocco where he directed and produced his first feature documentary, “The White Thread”. Khalil is a founding member of The Cinemathèque de Tanger (CdT) and a board member of Young Arab Theater Fund (YATF). In 2008, Khalil relocated to Qatar where he produced documentary and narrative films for Al Jazeera Children Channel. In early 2011 he joined The Doha Film Institute where he heads the Grants Programme and is currently producing Backstage, the first feature narrative by Afef Ben Mahmoud.

Edda has been an award-winning director and producer for over 20 years. In 2001, she scripted the award-winning program “Into the Night” for ARTE, a monthly documentary series she still produces, and has just finished producing a five-part series, ‘Cuba To Go,” for them. She launched avanti media+ in early 2013, and has been a juror for the International Emmy Awards for the past 10 years. She also is a member of the European Documentary Network (EDN) and works as a tutor for international film workshops and film schools.

Raed Andoni is an award-winning Palestinian filmmaker based in Paris. His most recent film “Ghost Hunting” (2017) premiered at the Berlin International film festival and won the Glashütte Original Documentary Award for best documentary film. Raed’s filmography started in 1997, when he co-founded Dar Films, a production company based in Ramallah. There he produced and secured wide international distribution for a number of award-winning documentaries. In 2008, he co-founded Les Films de Zayna, a Paris-based production company.

Rula has been active in the film industry since 1999. She worked on several international productions for the BBC, Discovery channels etc. She later joined the Royal Film Commission of Jordan for five years and established The Filmmaker’s Support Program.
With her vast experience in various areas of production, she produced many local films that participated in more than 30 prestigious festivals around the world, among others: “The Last Friday”, the first Jordanian film at Berlin International Film Festival 2011, “Waiting for P.O.Box”, official competition of the Cannes Short International Film Festival 2012. Rula line-produced many international and regional films with renowned directors as Hani Abu Assad, Mijke de Jong , Mia Hansen-Love, and Xavier Giannoli.

Melanie is a Reuters-trained freelance writer and journalist specialising in the international film and TV industry. She works mainly for the international film trade magazine Screen International, covering France and the Middle East, but has also collaborated on the publications of a number of festivals and film organisations around the world.

Joumana El Zein Khoury is the Director of the Prince Claus Fund where she was also responsible for coordinating the grants programme. Joumana’s previous positions include: Director of the Lutfia Rabbani Foundation for Euro-Arab exchange and Responsible for Development at the Arab Image Foundation, the Baalbeck Festival and Les Jeunes Solistes. She has carried out consultancy work for Ford Foundation, the European Cultural Foundation, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), and Open Society Initiative (OSI). Of Lebanese origin, Joumana has lived and studied internationally, obtaining an MA in Arts Administration from Columbia University, NYC, a BA in Arts Management from EAC Group, Paris, and studied law at Paris XI Sceaux.

Benjamin Cölle is a creative producer in film and cross-media productions, as well as a tutor & researcher at the renowned Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Potsdam, Germany. Benjamin has worked in a wide range of positions, including working at a local radio station, running an activist website, and producing documentary films and projects across multiple platforms and genres. Benjamin was born in Stuttgart, and has worked internationally in Amsterdam, London, and in Berlin where he has been working at INDI FILM since 2011.

Daniel Saltzwedel develops and produces documentaries for Ma.Ja.De Filmproduktion in Leipzig and Berlin. He teaches financing and dramaturgy at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and works as a tutor and moderator at film industry events. He previously worked for Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg as a funding consultant specialising in creative documentaries and as a producer for Zero Film in Berlin. Daniel has studied Business, Cultural Studies and Philosophy in Germany and Wales.

David Bernet is a Berlin-based swiss documentary film director who studied literature and philosophy in Vienna and Berlin. He started his career directing the documentary “Die Flüsterer” (2005) and the multimedia documentary „L’histoire c’est moi“ (2009). David is a member of AG DOK (the main association of documentary filmmakers in Germany). Furthermore he teaches audiovisual, non-fictional storytelling.

Born in Fez in 1963,  He studied psychology in France. Ali Essafi is one of Morocco’s most important documentary filmmakers and video artists. His films won many awards and were screened in prestigious locations such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.. His films are featured regularly at documentary film festivals from Montréal to Milano. His directorial debut “Général, nous voilà!” (1997) won the special prize of the jury at the Namur Film Festival, while “Ouarzazate” (2001) was awarded the prize for the best documentary film from the Mediterranean region at the film festival in Syrakus. In 2002, Ali Essafi returned to Morocco, where he worked for three years as an advisor on issues related to public television.

Annette Muff is an established film editor from Germany. She edited many documentary films since 1995. Most recently, she has edited the feature documentary films “Passion for Planet” (2016), “Forbidden Movies” (2014) and “Speed – In Search of Lost Time” (2012) and the docufiction film “Le Président” (2013) and was head editor of “24h Berlin “(2009). “24h Jerusalem” (2014) and “24h Bavaria” (2017).

Viola Shafik is PhD holder, a filmmaker, film curator, and film scholar. She holds the position of a researcher at the Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich and is currently researching aspects of the history of Arab Documentary as well as the notion of revolutionary cinema. She authored several published books in the fields of film history and film studies. She taught as the American University of Cairo and other universities, was the head of studies of the Documentary Campus MENA program, worked as a consultant for La Biennale di Venezia, the Rawi Screenwriters Lab and the Dubai Film Connection, was a member of the World Cinema Fund selection committee and cooperates currently with the Berlinale as a delegate for the Arab countries.

Ayman El Amir is an Egyptian filmmaker and academic. Originally a doctor, El Amir got an MFA degree in filmmaking with double majors in both film production and screenwriting from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts in Jordan in 2013. His filmography includes writing, directing and producing fiction and documentary films. In addition, he has worked for the last three years as a lecturer of Screenwriting and Film Production in couple of universities in the Middle East. In 2015, El Amir returned to Egypt to work as independent producer, while working as a script reader and editor for Torino Film Lab and Doha Film Institute grants program.

Marion is a co-founding member of DOX BOX e.V. As of 2017 she took on the design and inauguration of the documentary convention and the Amiralay Awards, where she is setting up and curating the program and collaborations. Previously Marion was co-chair of the board of DOX BOX from 2014 to 2016 and acted as the administrative head of the organization. Furthermore she was in charge of administrational management and the project supervision of the online MENA academy portal. Marion is an experienced project manager and has worked for various institutions across Europe and the Middle East, including Goethe-Institute Cairo, the European Film Market (Berlin) and Social Enterprise (London).​ Marion holds a master’s degree in Arts Administration & Cultural Policy from the University of London, UK. She is fluent in German and English and has basic conversational skills in Arabic.

Bader is the Founding Director of the non-for profit The Creative Documentary Platform- Jordan and its Public Engagement and Distribution Scheme, Minaa www.minaa.online. Moreover, she’s the Manager of the Jordan Film Fund organized through the Royal Film Commission- Jordan further to her work as a consultant on multiple film programs such as the Karama Human Rights Film Festival. Earlier on, she managed diverse educational film programs through the Royal Film Commission- Jordan, among those: the Rawi Screenwriters’ Lab and the Med Film Factory. In addition, she works closely with Arab filmmakers and supporting them at various levels.

Emily is a freelance writer, investigative researcher and filmmaker who lives in Berlin and Beirut. She has contributed to German, US and Lebanese media. She co-produced “Street of Death” (2017), which was awarded the Audi Short Film Prize at the Berlinale. She is co-founder of Friendly Fire Films, and is currently directing her first feature documentary.

Orwa is one of the founding members of the DOX BOX General Assembly. He is a highly-acclaimed independent documentary film producer, who has earned numerous awards and screened projects in major international film festivals and on television channels around the world. He manages an independent production company in Berlin where he focuses on documentary films with sociopolitical relevance. Orwa holds a degree in Acting from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, Syria. He was the Main Mentor for DOX BOX’s e-course “ABC Germany in October 2017”.

Hind Saih is a Moroccan-French achieved producer and film consultant . She has a PHD Degree in Cinema, she works for some years in distribution before moving into producing where she produced over 30 hours of documentary on various topics, experimenting new aesthetics and new narrative, while sharing strong vision about contemporary society. Her films have won prestigious recognitions at festivals and where broadcast on TV stations in Europe and internationally from Japan to USA. In 2009, she founds Bellota Films to produce creative films.

Andrea has been the director of the Nuremberg Human Rights Film Festival since 2007. Prior to that she was the director of StummFilmMusikTage in Erlangen from 2000 to 2011 and a lecturer for Film Studies at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg from 2000 to 2008. Andrea has been a member of the general assembly since 2015 and has been a co-chair of the board since 2016.

Irit Neidhardt is a film distributer from Germany. Irit has graduated in political science, Islamic science and anthropology from the university of Muenster/Germany. She worked as trainer for defence and assertiveness for girls and women, managed an adult education center for political and cultural learning and has been acting as a vocational author, curator and speaker in the field of cinema and the Middle East since completing her studies in 1995. In 2002 Irit funded the international distribution and sales company MEC film complementary to her free-lancing in Berlin.

Jihan is the General Director of DOX BOX. Having started her career as a foreign correspondent covering Middle East Politics, since 1990, Jihan has directed and produced documentaries for BBC, PBS, Arte and other international broadcasters. Her most recent documentary “Nasser” was part of the official selection at Toronto International Festival 2017. Jihan has produced and directed the acclaimed documentaries “Behind the Rainbow”, “ Cuba, an African Odyssey”, and Emmy-nominated “House of Saud”. She is engaged in various associations and institutions working with African cinema like the Guild of African Filmmakers in the Diaspora, the Federation of Pan African Cinema (FEPACI), and Focus Feature’s Africa first Program, and is a mentor at Documentary Campus.

Palmyre Badinier is the co-founder of Les Films de Zayna. She run the Paris-based company since 2008, producing films by emerging directors as well as established filmmakers. Recent titles include Raed Andoni’s second feature film “”Ghost Hunting”” which was awarded the GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL – DOCUMENTARY AWARD from the Berlin International Film Festival. Palmyre recently teamed up with Urban Factory in Paris and Akka Films in Geneva.

Sara Ishaq is a Yemeni-Scottish filmmaker. She produced the critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated film “Karama Has No Walls (2012)” and is the director of the award-winning documentary film “The Mulberry House,” about her family and the 2011 revolution in Yemen. Sara is one of the co-founders of the Yemen-based media collective #SupportYemen and co-launched Comra, Yemen’s first creative filmmaking training camp in 2015, and in 2017 co-founded Comra Films, a Yemen-based film foundation for film production and training.

Diana is a co-founder of DOX BOX e.V. Since the establishment of the association, she has been responsible for setting up its structures, allocating the resources, leading the team, setting up collaborations, and designing programs. She is actively involved in the Academy and the Fund departments. From 2014 until 2016 Diana was co-chair of the board of DOX BOX. She has over 15 years of experience in documentary filmmaking as a director and producer of award-winning documentaries and as a co-founder of the production company Proaction Film and the documentary film festival DOX BOX in Syria. Diana holds a bachelor’s degree in Arts and Humanities from the University of Damascus. She is fluent in Arabic and English and speaks  German on an intermediate level.

Mohamed Soueid, born in 1959 in Beirut, Lebanon, is a writer, director, and producer. He is currently the head of the documentary department at Al Arabiya News Channel. He directed his first film Absence in 1990, then his autobiographical trilogy full-length documentaries Tango of Yearning, 1998, Nightfall, 2000 and Civil War, 2002. For several years, he was Film Professor at St. Joseph University – Beirut. He have written three books: “Postponed Cinema – Lebanese Films During the Civil War” (1986); “O Heart – A Film Autobiography On The Late Movie Theatres Of Old Beirut” (1996), and the novel “Cabaret Souad” (2004).

Rasha Salti is an independent film and visual arts curator and writer, working and living between Beirut and Berlin. At present, she is the commissioning editor for La Lucarne, an experimental documentary programme for Arté France. Salti collaborates with different festivals as a programme consultant, including the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival (2009-2010), and the Toronto International Film Festival (2011-2015). She has also curated film programmes for the Musée Jeu de Paume (2012, 2013 and 2015) in Paris, and the Tate Modern in London (2011), among many others.

Hala is an Egyptian filmmaker. As such, she contributed to and co-founded ​several initiatives aimed at supporting independent and alternative cinema. She co-founded “SEMAT​ Production and Distribution​” which she has been managing since its inception. Hala was a jury member in numerous international, regional and local festivals, as well as head of the “Caravan of the Euro-Arab Cinema​ Festival”​ and the “Masry Asly” festival.

Guevara is a photographer and documentary filmmaker based in Berlin. Her film”Morning Fears, Night Chants” (2012) premiered at IDFA and was broadcast on Al Arabiya and ARTE (2013). She is a co-founder of DOX BOX and, between 2014 and 2017 held the position of its Academy manager and community moderator. She worked as a production manager and line produer of several Syrian documentary films, such as “Return to Homs” (2013) and “Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait” (2014).

Sebastian Heidinger is a German film director and editor. His documentary “Kabul Dream Factory”premiered in the Berlin International Film Festival to raving reviews. He has also directed other feature length films such as 2007 docu-drama “Drifter”.

Mohamed Al-Daradji Iraqi filmmaker studied in Iraq and the Netherlands before travelling to the UK to complete his Masters degree in Cinematography and Directing. Worked as a director, scriptwriter and photographer in many areas of video productions. He is known for Dreams (2006) Son of Babylon (2009), In My Mother’s Arms’ (2010) and In the Sands of Babylon (2013). His films were screened at more than 125 international festivals and received more than 30 awards, as well as Academy Award and Golden Globe consideration, Amnesty Film Award and the Peace Prize. His production company Iraq Al-Rafidain established the Iraqi Independent Film Centre (IIFC) in 2010, with the intention of encouraging and supporting a new generation of filmmakers.

Amer is a filmmaker, journalist and human rights activist. He studied journalism in Damascus and co-founded the organization Al-Schari (The Street), which fought for freedom of the press and its development. He made some short documentary films including Azadi (2011) which won distinctions at the Rotterdam Film Festival. As co-director, Amer Matar was involved in the making of the documentary Smuggling 23 Minutes of Revolution (2011). He was a fellow at the PEN Writers in Exile fellowship. Amer also runs the Syria Mobile film festival and writes poetry including Texte aus dem Exil (Foreign Homeland. Texts from Exile, 2013).

Mai manages support programs in DOX BOX including the Residency. She’s been part of our team since 2015. She sets up collaborations, manages grants and allocation of the resources for associated activities. Her previous experience in the cultural sector in mainly in Egypt, before she resumed her studies in Germany. She holds a master’s degree in Cultural Management of New Media and Cultural Studies from Karlsruhe University, Germany. Mai is fluent in Arabic and English and has basic  conversational skills in German.