Sarah El-Nawasrah is an Arab-American filmmaker from Saudi Arabia. She produced the short film “Dunya’s Day”, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and won the Short Film Jury Award for International Fiction. She also produced “Becoming”, an anthology feature film written and directed by Saudi women and funded by the Red Sea Film Festival.

Most recently, El-Nawasrah managed the Project Market at the inaugural Red Sea Film Festival, where the teams behind films in development sought financing by creating and presenting video pitches, meeting with international film industry professionals, and competing for awards.

While pursuing an MA in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University, El-Nawasrah stumbled upon a new purpose as a filmmaker translating and subtitling Saudi shorts. She holds a BA in Psychology and Global Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Mohamed Sayed is a film critic and journalist who is the artistic director of Port Said Film Festival and former artistic director of Sharm El-Sheikh Asian Film Festival. He is also a programmer for Red Sea International Film Festival, Ismailia International Festival for Documentaries and Short Films, and Alexandria Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries.

Sayed wrote “Khairy Beshara: The Rebel” which was published by Red Sea Film Festival. He also wrote various articles published in papers, magazines, and websites in Egypt and other Arab countries.

He is a member of the Egyptian Film Critics Association (EFCA), and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), and a jury member in several international and domestic film festivals.

Journalist and cinema programmer, Miquel Escuredo’s articles have been published in magazines such SoFilm, Dirigido Por, and Caimán Cuadernos de Cine.

He is a programmer at La Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival and at the Belfort Entrevues Festival.

He also works at Chinechilex (Chilean film directors association) with Pamela Varela, in addition to being the agent and curator of the avant-garde film directors collective Obscuritads.

As a Development Executive, Maia Malas focuses on working with Arab talents on ideas from script to screen. Her career started with the written word in Jordan as a young print journalist. She moved to London in 2003 to work in media training before focusing on development and production since 2008. Currently, Malas is heading development at Yalla Yalla for Front Row Filmed Entertainment.

Storytelling is a form of live anthropology, so seeking authentic narrative is key. Projects she works on often explore notions of culture, identity, family, society, economics, and education in the Arab context. She has worked with mainstream TV channels, independent production companies, and media development organizations. Malas spent several years with BBC Media Action where they created and produced two award- winning drama series. She has also worked on award-winning documentary shorts, feature length films, and unscripted TV programmes.

Daniel Habib is a writer, producer, and film connoisseur from Beirut, Lebanon who started his career in 2011 as the lead writer on the second season of the critically acclaimed series "Beirut, I Love You". In 2013, he co-founded and managed Heyoka Media, a digital production house specializing in non-fiction alternative Arabic content across multiple platforms and formats.

Habib now dedicates his time to leading a team of writers developing original Arab Genre fiction as the head writer and co-founder of Last Floor Productions. He also teaches scriptwriting at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and acts as a consultant for the MBC Shahid streaming platform.

Antoine Waked has a long experience in the field of cinema mentorship and education. He is the development executive at Abbout Productions, the leading film production company in Lebanon, the director of the cinema section at Alba University one of the top filmmaking schools in the country and the co-founder and artistic director of Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival, the only fantastic film festival in the Arab world, and the Maskoon Fantastic Lab which helps develop and package Arab genre films.

Other activities include script consultations for many international films, mentorship in various screenwriting labs, and essays and lectures on Arab genre cinema. He also co-directed the award- winning documentary “A Certain Nasser” about the life of pioneer Lebanese filmmaker Georges Nasser.

Andrew Meehan’s debut novel, “One Star Awake”, was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, the UK's most prestigious award for debut novelists. It has been described by the Irish Examiner as 'mesmerising, inventive, heart-wrenching, and brilliantly realised. The most interesting debut of 2017.' His second book, “The Mystery of Love”, a unique and moving reimagining of the relationship between Oscar and Constance Wilde, was published by Head of Zeus in 2020. Forthcoming is Meehan’s third novel, “Instant Fires”, which will be published by New Island in autumn 2022.

Prior to his focus on fiction, Meehan was for many years Head of Development at the Irish Film Board. There, he nurtured numerous Irish feature-films, including the Oscar-nominated animated feature “Song of the Sea”, Lenny Abrahamson’s “What Richard Did”, and the ground-breaking comedy “Good Vibrations”. Meehan also teaches Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.