Farah Fayed – Lebanon
Film Festivals / Film support programs

With a background in television, Farah holds a B.A in audiovisuel studies. Her 8 years in television were equally split between entertainment and news channels.

In 2012, Farah shifted her career into the film festivals’ industry and worked with the Dubai International Film Festival for its last 6 editions managing their Cinetech, a digital library for the sales and acquisitions of films.

Farah also worked with the Malmo Arab Film Festival, moderating its film market’s pitching sessions.

In 2019, Farah joined the team of Beirut DC, the association for Development and Cinema where she is currently the director of programs with a special attention to the impact program. Beirut DC’s impact program includes regional and local impact labs, an Impact Fund and the Impact Producers’ Fellowship among other intersectional programing.

Contact:
farahfayed@beirutdc.org
ffayed@gmail.com
http://beirutdc.org

Gerry Leonard – USA
Director of Filmmaker Services and Impact, Working Films

Gerry Leonard (he/him) is an impact strategist and organizer from Jakarta, Indonesia and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the Director of Filmmaker Services and Impact at Working Films, an organization that leverages the power of documentary film and storytelling as a resource for social justice movements. In this role he leads the design, implementation, and evaluation of services and funding Working Films provides to filmmakers. Gerry brings into the field of narrative shift and culture change, a background in community organizing — blending his experience in grassroots movement building and policy advocacy towards collective action and liberation. Before joining the Working Films team, Gerry worked on issues of food justice, voting rights, and police accountability. His leadership on a number of coalitions and boards have led to policies to reduce racial profiling within the carceral system and collaborative funding opportunities for equitable and just community leadership. He currently serves on the Leadership Team of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-DOC) and the Advisory Board for OPEN DOORS.
@workingfilms
Facebook/workingfilms
Twitter/workingfilms

Hollie Fifer – Wurundjeri Country, Australia
Filmmaker & Impact Field Builder

Hollie is currently the Director of Australian Programs at Doc Society and Director of the arts not-for-profit Schoolhouse Studios in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.

As a documentary filmmaker, Hollie’s films have screened at festivals and broadcast within Australia and internationally. THE OPPOSITION is Hollie’s debut feature documentary produced by Media Stockade that world premiered at Hot Docs and IDFA in 2016 before winning the Grand Prize at FIFO, screening at the UN Human Rights Council, winning Best Documentary Feature at the Oz Flix Independent Film Awards and screening in over 35 countries. Hollie’s latest short film UNBALANCED recently premiered on Australian newspapers The Age/Sydney Morning Herald’s Vox Dox series.

Hollie serves on the Board of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) and the Castlemaine Documentary Festival (CDoc). In her previous work she has been a freelance tutor in Documentary Directing at NIDA and AFTRS, Co-Director of The Artists Guild and selected for MECCA Shark Island M-Power Program.

Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala – Philippines
Broadcast journalist and filmmaker.

Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala co-founded the film production company Storytellers International Inc. and is the President of Filipino Documentary Society (FilDocs). She recently produced “Delikado,” a documentary on land defenders and illegal logging in the Philippines. It premiered at Hot Docs in May 2022, and at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. It will also screen at the CAAMFest, New York’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Doc Edge and at the Sheffield Doc Fest. Kara was one of the producers of “Call Her Ganda,” (Call Her Beautiful) that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and Hot Docs in 2018. It won the Grand Jury prize at the Los Angeles Pacific Film Festival, over a dozen Best Documentary Audience Awards and was broadcast on POV/PBS. The film was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. She has produced award-winning television specials and documentaries like “Batas Militar” (Martial Law). To date, it has been the highest rated documentary broadcast on Philippine Television. The documentary swept all major awards in the Philippines. It was a finalist at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA), and a bronze medalist at the New York Festival. After over 21 years since it premiered, “”Batas Militar” continues to be screened and discussed in public forums, in schools, and universities. Kara is based in Manila, Philippines. She is a contributing producer for ARD German TV, ARD German Radio, Cable News Network (CNN) Hong Kong and Atlanta bureaus. She is a member of the Good Pitch2 Southeast Asia Team in Jakarta. She has produced documentaries for the History Channel, and the Australian Broadcasting Company. She has reported for the Public Broadcasting Service and Voice of America.

Khadidja Benouataf – France / French Polynesia
Impact Strategist & Impact field builder

Coming from a background of journalism, Khadidja is vice-president of the IMPACT SOCIAL CLUB, the Think Tank of impact in France, and impact strategist at BIM – Best Impact Movies.

She trains film industry professionals and students in impact strategies in France and internationally (Dixit – Le film français, FOCAL, MIGROS STORYLAB, International Media Foundation, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, École W-Paris-Panthéon-Assas/CFJ), acts as a panellist and supervises impact labs in international film festivals (FIPADOC, FIFDH, DOK LEIPZIG, MOVIES THAT MATTER). In 2021 she joined the pool of mentors of the Pour-cent Culturel Migros Story Lab (Switzerland).

She has designed the impact campaigns for several award-winning documentaries: The Zimov Hypothesis by Denis Sneguirev (Arturo Mio,13 Productions, Arte), Le Dernier Refuge – The Last Shelter by Ousmane Samassekou (DS productions, Les Films du Balibari Point du Jour, Génération Afrique, Arte), the French campaign of Shadow Game by Eefje Blankevoort & Els Van Driel (Witfilm, KRO-NCRV, Prospector)…

Khadidja is also coordinator of the FIFO Tahiti overseas program at the International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival. In 2019, FIFO Tahiti hosted the first Good Pitch Impact Lab in France.

Rodrigo Antonio – Brazil

Rodrigo Antonio is from Amazon, Brasil. Graduated in History (UFPA) and Audiovisual Production (EICTV). He has produced feature and short films – fiction and documentaries -, web series, video clips, institutional videos and educational documentaries. He has experience as a curator and a reviewer of film labs, funds and festivals. He has worked as a professor of Film and Audiovisual arts at UFPA and he is currently doing a Master’s Degree in Art at this very institution. Rodrigo coordinates the social impact labs in Brazil and is the current president-director in the Association of Black Audiovisual Professionals.

Tiny Mungwe – South Africa

Tiny Mungwe is a filmmaker and arts manager. She works at STEPS, producing Generation Africa, a collection of 25 documentary films from 16 African countries.
She produced and directed Akekho uGogo a documentary , wrote Evelyn and directed, Daddy’s Boy. She was a writer on the TV series Muvhango and Matatiele and director on Uzalo.
Mungwe was programmes manager at the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) organizing their festivals Time of the Writer, the Durban International Film Festival, Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience and Poetry Africa, as well as Durban FilmMart and Talents Durban.

Vanessa Cuervo Forero – Colombia
Impact & Outreach Strategist | Director of Latin America Programs at Doc Society

Cultural organizer, dancer & impact strategist working across art, activism & social justice. Vanessa connects the world of human rights defenders with the spheres of art & film to promote social change.

At Doc Society she leads programs across Latin America, building strong partnerships with local host organizations in Colombia, México and Brasil, supporting documentary filmmakers designing impact campaigns and creating a strong network of doc allies in the region.

Through Skylight Solidarilabs she supports grassroots activists and storytellers to shift cultural narratives.

With DOCCO LABS she co-designed a virtual training program for Colombian Impact Producers, creating an online community called !ACCION!

As part of the peace process in Colombia, she supports the ongoing work of the Colombian Truth Commission as an advisor for Historias en Kilómetros, co-creating shorts with Afrocolombian teams, in order to come to terms with decades of conflict in their regions and contribute to the national historical memory.

Reach out at vanessa@cuervo.net

Emily Wanja – Kenya
Impact Producer | Global Community Manager, Climate Story Unit – Doc Society

Emily Wanja uses storytelling to drive social change. She is an award-winning Impact producer for the campaign ‘We Can Fight Climate Change’ for the international feature documentary, ‘Thank you for the Rain’. In conjunction with Docubox (East Africa Documentary Film Fund), she has worked with policymakers across National & County governments, Private stakeholders, Funders, Civil Society and Communities, using film as a tool for advocacy. She ran impact screenings for the film, ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’ by Participant Media, in Kenya. Previously, she was the in-house producer at Docubox (East Africa Documentary film fund).

She has worked extensively with young farmers across Kenya through ‘Seeds of Gold’ TV show and the leading newspaper version for youth and agribusiness at Nation Media Group. She has produced TV shows for numerous networks and has worked on award winning narrative short films. She’s on the Climate Justice Resilience Fund Advisory Council and on the Global Impact Producers Alliance Steering Committee. She works with the Storyboard collective on Impact and regional partnerships and is on the Kenya oscars selection committee. She is the Global Community Manager at Doc Society’s Climate Story Unit, working extensively with storytellers and cultural partners across the globe. wanja8@gmail.com | wanja@docsociety.org