She studied film directing at the Higher Institute of Cinema in Cairo and graduated in 1992. Her short film (Fly, Fly) in 1997 won several international awards. She directed her first feature film (Ahla Al-Awaqat) in 2004, which participated in many festivals and won many awards. Her last film was (Nowara) in 2016, which deals with the January 25 revolution. The film won many awards. She also worked in TV dramas as a director and author, and one of her works is a family-sized series with the artist Yehia El-Fakharani. And her latest work is the series Happy Dreams 2021.
Most of her works, which she writes, are narrated by a woman, and most of them revolve around a social or political context. She participated in many juries of international festivals and wrote articles on cinema.
Her first movie (Ahla Al-Awaqat) was chosen as one of the 100 most important films in the history of Egyptian cinema.
Álvaro Pastor
He is a screenwriter and filmmaker born in Madrid in 1972. Known by the film YO, TAMBIÉN (2009), written and directed along with Antonio Naharro. This film won two Silver Shells at San Sebastian IFF, two Goya Awards and a nomination as Best New Director. The film won the Audience Award at Rotterdam IFF and it competed at Sundance IFF. He has written and directed five short films, among which stand out INVULNERABLE and UNO MÁS, UNO MENOS, with more than 100 awards around the world. He has written and directed the documentary SALVANDO DISTANCIAS. As a remarkable work as advertising director, stands up NOMAD ECOGRAPHIES, Production Grand Prize at Sol Advertising IFF (Bilbao) and included in the Cannes Lions Shortlist 2017. He has filmed campaigns and digital content for famous brands such as Coca Cola, UNICEF, Microsoft, Toyota, Morgan & Stanley, filming in several countries in Asia, Africa and LATAM. In the last few years he has started his career as a musician... Currently he is involved in his second feature film, entitled HAWAI.
Margje de Koning
After finishing her studies, Margje de Koning directed documentaries for various broadcasting companies for 12 years.
For some years Margje was a teacher for documentaries at the University of Amsterdam.
In August 2004, Margje became Commissioning Editor for a documentary slot of 52’ docs. This meant producing and co-producing creative single 52'-documentaries on contemporary social, social-cultural and moral issues with a strong human interest angle. The focus is on Dutch subjects but surely also on subjects from over the hole world.
Since January 2005 Margje de Koning has been responsible for the Television Department of IKON and on January 2012 she became Head of TV, Radio and New Media programming at IKON. From January 2016 IKON has been incorporated within EO with Margje de Koning as Head of Documentaries for EOdocs. Since September 2019 she left the Public Broadcaster in order to become the new artistic director of the film festival Movies that Matter