Film Residency (2nd edition)

Ezzat Shadad is a filmmaker, visual artist, and producer from Aden, Yemen. He directed his first musical documentary, “Dreaming Chord,” in 2021. He served as the first assistant director for the film "The Burdened," the first Yemeni feature film to win at the Berlin Film Festival and represent Yemen at the 96th Academy Awards. In 2022, Ezzat received the Best Art Work award in Yemen for his project "About Cinema and Our Emotions" in the Fannak Ya Salam competition. He also worked as the assistant director for the Adeni adaptation of "Hamlet." Ezzat is passionate about highlighting independent poetic cinema and bringing Yemeni art to the global stage.

As an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker, Faris Alrjoob moves within the fields of film, video art and performance. He is a graduate of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, as well as Emerson College in Boston. His first short film The Ghosts We Left at Home (21’, 2020) premiered at the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. His latest film The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry (21', 2023) celebrated its premiere at the 76th CANNES International Film Festival, in the the Quinzaine des Cinéastes section. It was nominated for the German Film Prize and was released by MUBI.

Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay was born in Bad Hersfeld in 1987 and grew up in Hagen. He studied Media Arts at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, graduating with honors. He was a fellow of the “Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes” (German National Academic Foundation). In 2019, Mehmet directed ORAY. His graduation film not only received numerous international awards at prestigious festivals but also won the Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale 2019. In the following years, the film was released in cinemas in Germany, Turkey, and France. Through his production company filmfaust, he collaborates with his colleague Claus Reichel to produce international and award-winning feature and documentary films, such as Deren Ercenk’s BERZAH, Cem Kaya’s LOVE, DEUTSCHMARKS AND DEATH or IMMACULATA by Kim Lea Sakkal, which captivated both audiences and critics. These films garnered multiple awards at important festivals, including Oberhausen Short Film Festival and the Berlinale. In these films, Mehmet acts as a creative producer, guiding the projects from their initial conception to their grand premiere on the big screen.
filmfaust focuses on auteur films with personal signatures and an artistic-political vision, concentrating on marginalized, post-migrant and artistically challenging voices. For his upcoming project HYSTERIA, Mehmet also wrote the screenplay, and produced and directed the film. The movie is expected to premiere in 2024. He lives and works in Cologne.

Raoua Hanzouli earned a Degree in French Language, Literature and Civilization (French in 2020); a National Diploma in Writing and Directing at the Higher School of Audiovisual and Cinema of Gammarth Initiation to the script workshop led by Arnaud Desfontaines in 2016; an Initiation to genre sensitive film analysis in 2022 and she completed a Workshop animated by the director Peggy Rajski. She had Training led by the American producer and director Claire Aguila in documentary organized by CNCI Participation in the Warshat Aflam writing residency in Marseille. Roua directed a short documentary film " La Terre est à Nous " subsidized by the European Union in the framework of the within the framework of the Cine-Shabeb program in 2021. Raoua directed short documentary "Portrait de Femme " , subsidized by the association Cawtar in 2021; She received a Golden Owl Award in the Festival of Kantaoui for the film "La Terre à Nous " and the film was also nominated for best documentary at the Human environment Care Festival in Toronto.