Christopher Aoun was born in Beirut, where he studied cinematography at USJ de Beyrouth before continuing his studies at the HFF Munich.
He won the German Cinematography Award in 2019, was named one of ‘10 Cinematographers to watch’ by Variety and a ‘Rising Star of Cinematography‘ by American Cinematographer magazine and became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
He lensed Philippe Aractingi’s ‘Listen’ and Nadine Labaki’s Oscar-nominated ‘Capernaum’ in his native Beirut, as well as dozens of commercials and music videos worldwide for renowned artists including Selena Gomez, Lou Doillon and Rina Sawayama.
In 2020, ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ (Dir: Kaouther Ben Hanias) premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Orizzonti Award for Best Actor. It was nominated at the 93rd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film and Christopher’s work earned him his second nomination for the German Cinematography Award.
His most recent film, ‘Co-Pilot’ (Dir: Anne Zohra Berrached), produced by Razor Film premiered at the 2021 Berlinale. In 2022, the historic series ‘The Empress’ (Dir: Florian Cossen) produced by Sommerhaus will premiere on Netflix.
BIOS//سير
Christopher Aoun
Coral Aiken
Coral Aiken is a director, producer, and hobby gardener based in Toronto. Through her company Aiken Heart Films (AHF), founded in 2014, Coral has been supporting Canadian filmmakers to create short films and narrative features for over a decade.
Coral’s films have screened in competition at Cannes Cinéfondation, TIFF, Sarajevo, Seattle, Buenos Aires, in the Locarno Academy, and on Nowness.com. AHF is currently in post on The Well, the highly anticipated, narrative feature debut from Oscar-nominated director Hubert Davis. The Well will be released globally by XYZ Films.
Directed by the acclaimed Canadian director Valerie Buhagiar, Carmen (2022) is Aiken Heart’s first international co-production. Shot in Malta and starring Natascha McElhone, Carmen premiered at the Whistler Film Festival in 2021 winning best cinematography in the Borsos competition, and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Coral Aiken studied as a director at York University, MFA and at Berlinale Talents. She is an alumna of TIFF Studio, and EAVE. Coral teaches at LIFT, York University and the Canadian Film Centre.
Coral is represented by the United Talent Agency as a line producer and has worked for clients including Lionsgate, Elevation Pictures, Lisa Pictures, Discovery Channel, National Film Board of Canada, Scythia Films, Film Forge, MDFF, and Babe Nation Creations.
Dalal Al-Bizri
Dalal Al-Bizri, Lebanese researcher and writer. She specializes in contemporary Islamic movements and authored several studies on women’s issues. She served as lecturer in Political Sociology at the Lebanese University and spent ten years as researcher in Egypt.
Dan Montgomery
Dan Montgomery, b. 1985, is a Toronto-based producer of film and commercials. In 2009 he co-founded the production company MDFF. His short and feature length films have screened at some of the world’s top festivals including: the New York Film Festival, Cannes Critics’ Week, Berlinale, Venice, Locarno, SXSW and TIFF. His 2022 feature, THE MAIDEN, premiered in competition as part of Giornate degli Autori at the 79th Venice Film Festival where it won the Cinema of the Future Award. His most recent feature MATT AND MARA had its world premiere at the 74th Berlinale as part of the competition program Encounters.
As a freelance commercial line producer, he has worked for such production companies as Animals, Merchant, CANADA, Radioaktivefilm, Eleanor, Smuggler, Steam, Colossale, OPC, Furlined, Love Song, Tool of North America, Revolver, Asymetric, Suneeva, as well as various ad agencies: Energy BBDO, Preacher, Rethink, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Deutsch LA, GUT, TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, Cossette, FCB, Leo Burnett, Anomaly, Juliet, The Hive, lg2, Wunderman Thompson, Motive, TAXI, Erich & Kallman, among others.
In addition to producing films, he has also co-run a monthly screening series in Toronto since 2013, MDFF Selects now presented at the TIFF Lightbox.
Daniel Carsenty
Daniel Carsenty is a Berlin filmmaker currently working at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, teaching at the Raindance Institute London and the International Academy for Film and Media in Dhaka, Bangladesh. danielcarsenty.com
Darine Hotait
Darine Hotait is an Arab American writer, film director, and the founder of Cinephilia Productions— a New York-based film incubator championing African and Middle Eastern filmmakers. Darine has written and directed a dozen award-winning short films that can be seen on SundanceTV, AMC Networks, BBC Channel, ShortsTV, and at over a hundred international film festivals. She is the recipient of the prestigious New York Council on the Arts Artist Award, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the AFAC Cinema Grant, a Goethe Award, and an EMMY Blu Ribbon nomination. Her work has received the support of institutions like The Independent Film Project, Cannes Scriptwriters’ Pavilion, and The Sundance Institute. Darine is a published author of science fiction short stories and stage plays. Her literary work has appeared in several publications in print and online. www.darinehotait.com
Desirée Custers
Desirée Custers is a writer, researcher, and translator of Arabic literature. Her translations from Arabic to Dutch have appeared in poetry magazines and cultural platforms in Belgium, and in 2019 she translated the novel Brusselse Vrouwen (‘Women of Brussels’) by the Palestinian author Nisma Alaklouk. For her masters’ degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, Desiree submitted a thesis on Arabic science fiction with the title Arabic science fiction as vehicle for criticism, in which she focused on the novel Harb al-Kalb al-Thaniyyah (‘Dog War II’, 2018) by Palestinian/Jordanian author Ibrahim Nasrallah. The thesis was short-listed for the Flemish thesis prize in 2019. Desiree writes about Arab sci-fi and literary and cultural topics on her bi-lingual Arabic/English blog, issabramil.com. She also holds an M.A. in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
Dima Toukan
Dima Toukan has over 20 years experience in the audio visual industry and is an award-winning creative producer. She has worked with a number of prominent TV networks, film production companies and media startups in the Middle East region. She currently works on projects in the capacity of creative consultant alongside developing content and film production. She is passionate about supporting aspiring filmmakers in realizing their unique and original stories.
Dina Emam
Named one of Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch in 2018, Dina Emam is an Egyptian-American film producer and educator working between New York and Cairo. Her first feature, Yomeddine, had its world premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival in the Main Competition, and was Egypt’s submission for the 91st Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In addition to producing, she teaches filmmaking/producing workshops and masterclasses for aspiring filmmakers in the MENA region. Prior to becoming a film producer, Emam worked in television market research and production management at MTV Networks in New York City.
Emam holds a BS from New York University’s Stern School of Business in Marketing and International Business and an MFA in Creative Producing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She has previously served as an AmeriCorps volunteer.
Elie Khalifé
Elie Khalifé is a Lebanese director, screenwriter and producer whose career spans over two decades and multiple award-winning projects. Elie studied film at the Geneva University of Art and Design (ESAV-HEAD). Lebanon is both the backdrop and inspiration to his work.
Elie’s body of work is primarily based on his own material and showcases his comedic streak with award-winning shorts like “Taxi Service” (1996), “Merci Natex” (1998) and his first feature “Yanoosak” (2010). Elie also directed “Single Married Divorced” (2015), a highly popular comedy. “State of Agitation” (2020) is his third feature film and the first in which he acts.
Farah Abou Kharroub
Farah Abou Kharroub, a Palestinian born in Lebanon, holds a BA in Filmmaking from the Lebanese University in Beirut (2014). She directed and produced several TV shows and also works as an editor and cinematographer. Her photographic work centres on documenting Palestinian stories, and has been featured in Austria and Germany. She is currently pursuing her MFA degree in film directing from FAMU International in Prague and developing her first feature film The Wind Above the Clouds. Through her work, Farah explores themes that are related to memory, social inequality, borders, refugees, and freedom.
Farah Sadek
Farah Sadek is an Egyptian journalist and interviewer based in Cairo, with a BA in Mass Communication and a major in journalism. She mainly loves writing about film, TV, and culture, especially with a focus on the MENA region. When she’s not doing that, she’s working on venturing into the film industry and developing her first script. You can find her and her works on Twitter and Instagram.
Fatima Wardy
Fatima Wardy is a Sudanese and British filmmaker, currently based in Austin, Texas. Her upcoming short ‘White Musk’ was selected for the Short Form Station lab at Berlinale Talents, and concerns a young Sudanese woman coming to terms with the loss of her mother. Additionally, she is currently developing a documentary feature titled ‘The Love Marriage’ about the Omar al-Bashir military coup in 1989. It was awarded funding by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC).
Fatma Hendawy Yehia
Fatma Hendawy Yehia is an Egyptian-Canadian curator, based in Toronto since 2017. Yehia graduated in 2020 from the Master of Visual Studies Curatorial program at university of Toronto. Since 2008, Yehia held different positions at the New Library of Alexandria including Head of Permanent Exhibitions (2010-12). She was the Assistant Curator at the AGYU, Toronto (2021-22). She was Guest Curator at Images Festival 2022, and currently she works as Assistant Archivist at the Art Museum, University of Toronto. Yehia participated in curatorial workshops (including Tate Intensive 2017), residencies (ProHelvetia and ZKU/Berlin) and curated several projects in Egypt, UK, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Canada. Her curatorial practice focuses on investigating censored archives, questioning inaccessible histories, and navigating militarised spaces.
Ghassen Chraifa
Born in 1993, Ghassen Chraifa lives and works in Tunis. He is a photographer and filmmaker. After a first year of higher studies in fine arts, he joined the National School of Architecture and Urban Planning in Tunis. He participated in several artistic and cinematographic programs. This journey has increased his love of the image. His element is capturing the present moment and preserving it from oblivion.
Hiba Sleiman
Hiba Sleiman is a Montreal-based artist and drama therapist. She is an actor and a writer for stage and screen and started her psychotherapy practice in 2023. Hiba’s curiosity for human behaviour has informed her creative work as her writing contemplates themes of identity, belonging, and politics of the self and the other. Hiba has worked with acclaimed filmmakers and stage directors in Lebanon, Canada, and the States. She recently developed the script for the upcoming music concert of the Canadian Arabic Orchestra. She is currently developing an
immersive piece taking place “off stage” and working on producing her second independent short film.
Houssam Jlelati
Houssam Jlelati graduated from Ornina Institute of Art, Damascus. He participated in several theatre and film writing workshops and has been making shorts films since 2016.
Ilze Briede
Ilze Briede [a.k.a. Kavi] is a Latvian/Canadian artist and researcher working across multiple disciplines, including visual art, interactive installation and live performance. Her creative practice and academic research encompass working with live data sets and designing systems to turn data into visceral experiences. An example would be harnessing data from the forest about trees and the environment or the human body through bio-physiological sensing and translating them into immersive narratives. Kavi sees data as a living material that can express its essence and inner truth through creative, technological and artistic interventions. Sometimes, it looks too abstract for the human mind’s eye; however, she believes that the more we are exposed to weird and unusual, the more we stretch our cognitive abilities to embrace the world at large. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computational Art at York University.
Iman Abbaro
Iman Abbaro is a Sudanese community organizer and multidisciplinary artist currently residing in Toronto. She is the co-founder of creative collective “Diaspora Express”; which is dedicated to fostering Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) communities through creative expression. She has collaborated with a range of local creative initiatives such as Toronto Arab Film, and the Regent Park Youth Media Arts Centre. Iman is passionate about exploring the intersections of mental health, art and activism in BIPOC communities. She aims to push her creative practice towards bridging the gap between different diasporic communities through an intersectional lens.
Jasmin Zine
Jasmin Zine is a Professor of Sociology and Religion & Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. She served as a consultant on combating Islamophobia for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Council of Europe (COE), and the Office for the Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (ODHIR/OSCE). Her recent book: Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation (2022, McGill -Queens University Press) explores the experiences of the millennial generation of Canadian Muslim youth who came of age during the global war on terror and times of heightened anti-Muslim racism. She is author of a major report on the Canadian Islamophobia industry that examines the networks of hate and bigotry that purvey and monetize Islamophobia. She is a sought-after media commentator and has given numerous invited talks and keynotes in Istanbul, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Madrid, Cordoba, Nairobi, Uppsala, as well as in Pakistan and across the U.S.