Team

Creative Team

Rami Younis (Director/Producer) is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, journalist and activist from Lyd. He was a 2019-20 Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School. As a journalist, he  mainly wrote for the online magazine +972 and served as both writer and editor of its Hebrew sister site, “local call”, a journalistic project he co-founded, designed to challenge Israeli mainstream journalism outlets. Rami served as a parliamentary consultant and media spokesperson for Palestinian member of Knesset (Israeli parliament) Haneen Zoabi. Rami is also co-founder and manager of the first ever “Palestine Music Expo”: an event that connects local Palestinian music scene to the world wide industry. Younis is the host of the Arabic-language daily news show, “On the Other Hand.”

Sarah Friedland (Director/cinematographer) is a documentary filmmaker and media artist based in New York. Friedland’s works have screened widely in the US and abroad and have been broadcast nationally on PBS. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Paul Newman Foundation,, the Ford Foundation, NYSCA, the LABA House of Study, The Palestinian American Research Center, and the MacDowell Colony. She is a recipient of the 2014 Paul Robeson award from the Newark Museum and was nominated for a New York Emmy. Friedland is the Director of the MDOCS Storyteller’s Institute at Skidmore College and an active member of the Meerkat Media Collective.

Eyas Salman (Editor) is the editor of the Academy Award nominated film Omar by Hany Abu-Assad. In addition to Omar Salman has edited numerous fiction and documentary feature films that have screened at prestigious festivals including Cannes and IDFA. He is represented by Lux Artists. Salman is passionate about working on films that tell nuanced and artistic stories about his home country of Palestine.

Samakas Studio (Animation) an Egyptian animation studio that swims througha wide range of animation services of excellent quality. We aspire to revive the Egyptian cultural heritage through producing high-quality animation films which a younger Egyptian audience could easily relate to and interact with. Eventually, we aim to position authentic Egyptian animation as a strong competitor on both a regional and global scale. Our team is best known for high quality production, flexibility and excellent skill at creating animated video content that is delivered on tight deadlines without compromising quality.

Studio X | Academy of Art University (Visual Effects) a student run, faculty mentored experience that emulates a real-world animation and VFX production environment. Students work with real clients, on real films and games, with real deadlines-and real problems to solve. The “X” in Studio X stands for the valuable eXperience students gain as they prepare for animation careers.

Producers

Sawsan Asfari (Producer) is at present the executive director of the Galilee Foundation,which supports the palestinian community in israel through education and cultural initiatives. She is also a co- founder and a trustee of the Asfari Foundation, which focuses on education, civil society and relief programmes. Sawsan is also a partner in Cactus World Films, and have co-produced award winning films such as Salt of the Sea,  When I Saw You, and recently The Idol. Sawsan holds a BA degree in Political Science and English Literature, and a degree in journalism.

Fivel Rothberg (Producer) specializes in producing short nonfiction films for NGOs and long-format documentaries.  He received the 2015 DoGooder Award for Best Impact Video from YouTube and See3 Communications, for our production on behalf of the Fund for Modern Courts, Now Is the Time. Currently, he is producing a feature-length documentary by Nathan Fitch, Island Soldier, about Micronesian citizens serving in the US military. “Island Soldier” has the backing of the PBS-affiliated funder Pacific Islanders in Communications. It premiered at Full Frame 2017 and had its international premiere at HotDocs 2017. Previously, he was the Associate Producer of Kelly Anderson’s film, “My Brooklyn,” which aired in 2014 on the PBS series America ReFramed.

Roger Waters (Executive Producer) is a founding member of the band Pink Floyd and a successful solo artist. His commitment to activism and human rights can be seen through his work on a multitude of causes including: justice for Palestine, disaster relief, extreme poverty and malaria, global climate change, veterans rights, and many more important areas of struggle and solidarity.

Reda Sabassi (Associate Producer) is a Los Angeles based entrepreneur who started his career in Tech and IT.  He is a Palestinian from Jordan who is interested in supporting projects that call for justice in Palestine.

Nancy Kalow, Associate Producer, is a folklorist and filmmaker who has taught at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies since 2000. Her video documentary, Sadobabies, was the winner of a Gold Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the Special Jury Trophy at the San Francisco Film Festival. She has been co-chair of the Selection Committee of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival since 2003. She was a co-convener, with miriam cooke and Maha Houssami, of the 2015/16 Mellon Humanities Writ Large project, Arab Refugee Oral History: Collecting Life Narratives. Her e-book, Visual Storytelling: The Digital Video Documentary was published by CDS.

Advisors

Rabab Haj Yahya, consulting editor, is an Emmy-nominated documentary editor and a Sundance Edit and Story Lab Fellow. Her recent work includes the award-winning feature documentary SPEED SISTERS (HotDocs 2015), LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017) and the web series THE SECRET LIFE OF MUSLIMS (Peabody Finalist, Vox and USA Today, 2016). Rabab has also edited numerous documentaries commissioned by the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, including ENEMIES OF THE SOUTH (2015), which was featured in multiple prime-time slots on the network. In between projects, Rabab has dedicated a significant amount of her time helping aspiring editors and filmmakers, through training and pro-bono consultations in the Middle East, West Africa, and the Balkans. Rabab speaks English, Arabic, and Hebrew fluently and currently lives in New York.

Jay Arthur Sterrenberg, consulting editor, is a Canadian-American documentary director, editor an cinematographer whose work has broadcast on PBS, HBO, and CNN, and has screened at festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin & IDFA. Documentary editing credits include DARK MONEY (Sundance, 2018), TROPHY (CNN Films, 2017), Tribeca award winning UNTOUCHABLE (2016), NARCO CULTURA (Cinedigm, 2013), Academy Award nominated REDEMPTION (HBO, 2013), and Emmy Nominated SECTION 60 (HBO, 2008).

Advisors:

  • Tamer Nafar: Musician, actor, and activist. Member of the Lyd based Hip Hop group DAM. Star of Junction 48, fiction film based in Lyd.
  • Hannah Mermelstein: Founder of Librarians and Archivists for Palestine.
  • Suha Arraf: Fiction film director and screenwriter. Director of Fiction Film, Villa Touma.
  • Oren Moverman: Academy award winning fiction film screen writer, director and producer. Credits include Time Out Of Mind, Love and Mercy and Junction 48.
  • Jonathan Cook: Award-winning British author and journalist reporting from Nazareth on the Middle East, including the Israel-Palestine conflict.
  • Orwa Switat: City planner and doctoral candidate in geography whose research includes the erasure of Palestinian features of “mixed cities” in Israel.
  • Dina Dahmash: descendant of Khalil Dahmash who built the mosque where the massacre occurred in Lyd.
  • Lamia Dahmash: descendant of Khalil Dahmash who built the mosque where the massacre occurred in Lyd.