The Team
DIRECTOR Areeb Zuaiter is a Palestinian Jordanian American visual storyteller.
For the past three years, Areeb has been fulfilling her passion in supporting emerging filmmakers through her position as the Regional Training Manager at the Royal Film Commission - Jordan.
She has been on the evaluation committee of some of the most competitive programs in the Arab region including Rawi Screenwriters Lab, the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Foundation and Med Film Factory.
Areeb holds a Master’s degree in Film and Video Production from the American University (AU) in Washington, DC. During her enrollment at AU, she worked as a Technology Associate with the Associated Press; an experience that exposed her to the latest technologies in production and broadcasting. Soon after, Areeb was rewarded a fellowship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History where she produced some of the Museum’s key film projects.
Areeb’s thesis, “Colors of a Displaced Identity,” was nominated for Sony’s Outstanding Thesis Award in May 2014 through AU’s Visions Awards.
For her undergrad, Areeb pursued a degree in Interior Architecture and another one in Communication Arts. Her graduation short “Stained” won the Jury’s prize in the 10th European Film Festival in Beirut, Lebanon.
In 2005, Areeb documented Jordan’s participation in Aichi Exposition; Japan, in a short that was nominated in Aichi’s Friendship Film Festival.
PRODUCER BRIGID MAHER is a filmmaker and tenured, associate professor of Film and Media Arts Division in the School of Communication at American University.
Her previous documentary, Veiled Voices, focuses on the phenomenon of Muslim women religious leaders in Islam. Veiled Voices is distributed by Typecast Releasing in the United States and has screened on over 150 public television stations and three national networks. Al Jazeera Network recently acquired the film for broadcast in the Middle East and North Africa. The film has additional international distribution through TVF International and has screened in numerous international festivals in the United States and abroad. Several of her films have international distribution including her latest documentary, The Mama Sherpas, released in 2015 alongside producer Ricky Lake and Abby Epstien (The Business of Being Born). Maher won a Fulbright Senior Award to teach broadcast media in Lebanon in the spring of 2005.