For Episode 8 in the Cinematic Dialogs series, we have the pleasure of welcoming directors Dima Hamdan and Saeed Taji Farouky for a conversation about identity and home, film practice at a distance, and the tradition of cinema in exile.
Dima Hamdan is a Palestinian journalist and filmmakers. After spending ten years working with the BBC Arabic & World Service, the stories she covered during that time inspired many ideas for her short films and feature projects. She has directed five shorts since 2007 in London, Amman and Berlin. Her latest short film, The Bomb, won the Best Female Director of the 2019 Ayodhya Film Festival in India, and received a Special Mention at the Festival del Cinema dei Diritti Umani di Napoli.
Saeed Taji Farouky is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and artist specializing in long-term human rights projects. His documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year won the Amnesty International Award and the Audience Choice Panorama Award at Berlinale 2015. In 2011, he was named a Senior TED Fellow, and he was previously named Artist-In-Residence at the British Museum and Tate Britain. Most recently, his documentary A Thousand Fires won the Marco Zucchi Award in the Semaine de la Critique at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. He has been a regular human rights speaker and educator with Amnesty International for 10 years and has been teaching filmmaking and cinematography since 2009.
