Meet the Cinema Founders

Butheina Kazim lives and works in Dubai. She is the founder of Cinema Akil, the only arthouse cinema in the Gulf region programming repertory cinema programmes. They screen films at their flagship home on Alserkal Avenue in Dubai and through a nomadic cinema that travels across the United Arab Emirates. Cinema Akil is a member of the Network of Arab Alternative Screens.

Berni Goldblat has been directing and producing films since 1999, mainly in Africa. In 2006, he founded Les films du Djabadjah, a production company in Burkina Faso. He went on to direct CEUX DE LA COLLINE, a multi-award-winning documentary. In 2017, his first narrative feature WALLAY premiered in Berlinale Generation and was shown at 250 festivals. He is a jury member of the Africa Movie Academy Awards and a member of the European Film Academy.

Alejandro Pinedo has worked in the production company Promocine (SITIADOS, EL REEMPLAZANTE, LOS ARCHIVOS DEL CARDENAL) as a producer and as a post-production coordinator for the TV series BERKO, EL ARTE DE CALLAR, co-produced with Fox Latam and IMAGO. He has also worked as a script advisor for Promocine and DDRIO ESTUDIOS, as well as for other independent works in progress. He currently works as a producer at CCC.

Rabih El-Khoury has been working with the Metropolis Association as administrator, then as Managing Director and is today a member of its administrative board. He worked for the cultural association Beirut DC for the promotion of Arab Cinema as general coordinator The Beirut Cinema Days. He served as Programme Manager of Talents Beirut, curated the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and worked as Diversity Manager at DFF. He currently curates the SAFAR Film Festival of the Arab British Center in the UK, Arab Cinema Week for Cinema Akil in Dubai, is a programmer at Alfilm, and collaborates with AFRIKAMERA in Berlin.

Hania is a film programmer based in Beirut. She directs Metropolis Cinema, Lebanon’s only arthouse movie theatre that she founded in 2006. She’s the director of Talents Beirut, a branch of the Berlinale Talents dedicated to DOPs, Editors and Sound Designers from the Arab world. She started MC Distribution to sell and distribute Arab independent films in the MENA region. She’s a programming consultant at the Marrakesh International Film Festival.

Catalina Marín Duarte is the editor of Dominga Sotomayor's award-winning features THURSDAY TILL SUNDAY, MAR and TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, among other projects. She recently edited Omar Zuñiga’s first feature THE STRONG ONES as well as the artist Alejandra Prieto's film projects. Over the last four years, together with Dominga Sotomayor and Rafela Behrens, she has developed the arthouse cinema Cine CCC, conceived as a meeting point for Chilean cinema and its surrounding community.

Dorothee Wenner is a filmmaker, film curator and writer based in Berlin. She serves as delegate to Berlin International Film Festival for the Subsahara-Africa region, as external curator at Humboldt Forum for film/cinema and others. Since inception in 2005, Dorothee belongs to the jury of Lagos based African Movie Academy Awards. Her latest work as a filmmaker was the web-series "Kinshasa Collection".