Reem Saleh, born 1979 graduated from the Lebanese American University in Beirut with a BA in Radio, TV and Film. She has directed the short film THE NAKED EYE, the stage play ‘Wings’ written by Arthur Kopit, and contributed in the production of several documentaries for MTV Lebanon and Rotana Enterprise. Saleh moved to Qatar in 2006 to work for Al Jazeera Children’s Channel as a producer and voice-over artist, then went on to join the Doha Film Institute where she contributed on different aspects of content creation from film reviews, video content and for 4 years she acted as the Deputy Director of the Ajyal Film Festival.

Walid Mattar, born in Hammam-Lif (Tunisia) in 1980 he is studying cinema. A member of the Tunisian filmmakers' foundation since the age of 13, he was director of photography on several shorts. In 2005 he directed his first professional short, the documentary FILS DE TORTUE. In 2006, he co-directed with Leyla Bouzid, the short SBEH EL KHIR as part of the project "10 Courts, 10 regards" from young Tunisian directors. The project was presented in the cinephile village at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2010, he wrote with Leyla Bouzid CONDEMNATIONS short drama that he directed alone. NORTHERN WIND is his latest feature.

Meryem Benm’Barek was born in 1984 in Rabat. She was study directing department at INSAS in Brussels in 2010. There, she directed five short films, notably NOR(2013) and JENNAH(2014), which was selected for numerous international film festivals, and was considered for submission for an Academy Award in 2015. She also creates sound design art and has had exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. SOFIA, her first feature film, is notably a recipient of the Gan Foundation prize and a grant from the Doha Film institute.

Mahmoud Sabbagh was born in 1983 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He studied documentary filmmaking in New York. Since then, he has worked as an independent film director and producer in Saudi Arabia. His first feature film, BARAKAH MEETS BARAKAH(2016), was won at the Berlinale Forum.

Born in Babylon, Iraq, in 1959, and studied filmmaking in France. He returned to his home country in 2002 to make his first documentary, BACK TO BABYLON, followed by WE IRAQIS in 2004. He directed his first fiction film, DAWN OF THE WORLD, in 2008, before returning to the documentary form with HOMELAND IRAQ YEAR ZERO(2015), which won the Grand Prix in Nyon and the Doc Alliance Selection Award in Locarno. YARA (2018) is his second fiction feature film.

A.B. Shawky is an Egyptian-Austrian filmmaker. He founded his production company DESERT HIGHWAY PICTURES in 2014 with the aim to bring stories of the underdog to the big screen. His thesis film for NYU was his debut feature YOMEDDINE, which had its world premiere in Main Competition at Cannes Film Festival in 2018 and received the Francois Chalais Award. The film was Egypt's official submission for the 91st Academy Awards Shawky was listed by Forbes Magazine among the top five Arab directors on the global stage. Variety Magazine named him MENA Talent of the Year.