Najwa Najjar
Palestine/USA
Writer/ Director BA in Pol/sc/Econ MA Film(US). She has worked in both documentary and fiction since 2000. Her critically acclaimed debut was the feature film Pomegranates and Myrrh (2009). Her second award winning feature film Eyes of a Thief (2014) was the Palestinian nomination 2015 Oscars Best Foreign Film.
Her third feature film, a road trip: Between Heaven and Earth completed Nov 2019 played at the Cairo International Film Festival international competition and won the Naguib Mahfouz Best Screenplay award. Previous works include several award-winning films also shown worldwide (Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, Hamptons,): Yasmine Tughani (2006), Naim and Wadee’a (2000), Quintessence of Oblivion(2001), Blue Gold
(2004), A Boy Called Mohamad (2002), and They Came from the East which opened the 2004 European Academy Awards.
Najjar produced a collection of short films by international filmmakers Gaza Winter (2009).
A speaker on numerous panels on cinema and a Jury member of several International Film. Festivals, she has given Director’s Masterclasses. Najjar has reviewed books, and her articles on Palestinian cinema have been published. She has been a reader for the Rawi Sundance Lab for Arab scriptwriters and has been an advisor for the Rawi Sundance Scriptwriter’s Lab. She’s now working on a Feature to be shot in Cairo and a collection of short by six Palestinian woman directors.
Abrar Athar
Bangladesh
Abrar Athar is a Bangladesh based filmmaker and co-founder of Little Big Films.
Internationally Award Winning Shorts, Cult Hit Web Films and breathtaking commercials; Abrar is the writer, director behind some of Bangladesh’s most interesting content.
Marcin Ciastoń
Poland
Graduate of Applied Linguistics and Screenwriting. Alumnus of international development programs: Cross Channel Film Lab (2016) and Films for Kids.Pro (2017/2018). Three-time finalist of the most prestigious screenwriting competition in Poland, Script Pro, with his original screenplays Gorzki fiolet (Bitter Violet) in 2016, Powrót (The Return) in 2017 and Detektyw Bruno (Detective Bruno, together with co-writer Ewa Rozenbajgier) in 2019.
Winner of the Script Wars screenwriting contest with his original screenplay Hyacinth. TV writer with several broadcasters and producers. Creator of a documentary TV series about comic books, broadcast on Canal+. Collaborator on several international projects in development. Two of his feature films (a family comedy and a historical crime story) are set to be produced in 2020.