Viola Shafik

Freelance filmmaker, film curator and film scholar. She authored among others Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity and Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class and Nation. She lectured at the American University in Cairo, the Zürich University, the Humboldt Universty in Berlin and the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. She was the Head of Studies of the Documentary Campus MENA programme 2011-2013. Moreover she worked as a consultant for La Biennale di Venezia as well as the Dubai Film Connection and is a member of the selection committees of the al-Rawi Screenwriters Lab, the Doha Film Institute, and the World Cinema Fund (Berlinale). She directed several documentaries, most notably MY NAME IS NOT ALI and ARIJ – SCENT OF REVOLUTION.