Event Details
May 30, 2021
12:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Watch
Filmmaker Roundtable with: Malas Twins (One of Us Left the Photo), Suzannah Mirghani (Al-Sit), Sara Mesfer (The Girls Who Burned the Night)
Moderator:
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.
Speakers:
Sara Mesfer (The Girls Who Burned the Night)
Sara Mesfer is a Saudi Director based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She holds a bachelor degree in Cinematic Art from Effat University, Saudi Arabia.
She started her journey working in different roles in films that participated in local and international film festivals. In 2018 she wrote and directed her first short film “Balcony”. In 2019 she Wrote and Produced “Quareer Chapter Three” A short film that is part of a Collective Feature Film that highlights five different stages of a woman’s life in Saudi Arabia.
Sara Wrote and Directed her short “The Girls who Burned The Night” Which got the Jury Special Mention award in Cairo international Film festival in its 42nd edition. Sara’s latest is her participation as a Writer and Director of “Al Dabah” in “Becoming” Omnibus Feature with four female directors by the support of Red Sea international film Festival in 2020.
Suzannah Mirghani (Al-Sit)
Suzannah Mirghani is a writer, researcher, and media studies/museum studies graduate. Sudanese-Russian, she is interested in stories about the complexity of identity. Suzannah is the writer, director, and producer of AL-SIT (2020, Sudan/Qatar), screening on Netflix Middle East, and winner of the Canal+ Award at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in 2021 as well as 6 Academy Award qualifying prizes at Tampere Film Festival; LA Shorts; BronzeLens; New Orleans Film Festival; AFI Fest; and Interfilm Berlin. Her latest short is the experimental documentary/social media satire VIRTUAL VOICE (2021), which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Suzannah is working on her first feature COTTON QUEEN, which won the ArteKino Award at L’Atelier de la Cinefondation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.