2021 Hamilton Voices of Palestine Film Series!

Carol Mansour

Carol Mansour is an independent documentary film maker. She founded Forward Film Production in 2000 in Beirut, Lebanon. With over 25 years in documentary production, Mansour achieved international recognition and honor for her films, with over fifty film festival screenings and official selections worldwide.

Her films have been screened at several festivals in Europe and North America, winning numerous prestigious awards including most recently, the Best Documentary Award at the Delhi International Film Festival in 2018 and the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Boston Palestine Film Festival, 2017, for her 2017 film “Stitching Palestine”. She was awarded the Best Documentary Award at the Al-Ard Film Festival in Sardegna, and the Women Film Critics Circle Award at Rated SR Festival 2015 in New York, for her 2014 documentary film “We cannot go there now, my Dear”. She was awarded Best Documentary at the Rated SR Festival 2014 in New York, and the Jury’s Special Mention at the FIFOG festival in Geneva for her 2013 film "Not Who We Are". Her 2006 film “A Summer Not To Forget” received Best Short International Documentary at the New Zealand Festival. She has also won the Jury’s Prize at the Institute du Monde Arab in Paris and Best Documentary at the Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam.

Carol’s work reflects her concern for human rights and social justice, covering issues such as migrant workers, refugees, environmental issues, mental health, rights of the disabled, war and memory, right to health, and child labor. Carol is Lebanese of Palestinian origin. She studied in Montreal, Canada, and is currently living and working from Beirut, Lebanon.

Muna Khalidi

With a Ph.D. in health policy and planning, and with 30 years’ experience working in the social and health development fields in Lebanon and the Arab region, Muna has been working with various international and local organizations providing technical assistance for them to develop strategic plans and to design and develop programs. In 2012 she began collaborating with Carol Mansour on the research and production of documentary films dealing with issues of social justice and human rights, bringing her experience in the academic, public, private, and NGO sectors into the film and documentary-making field.

So far, she has worked closely with Carol Mansour on numerous short films and awareness raising campaigns and programs as well as on the production of nine feature-length documentary films: on mental health in Lebanon, the memory of the Lebanese civil war among the new generation, the plight of Syrian refugee women, the Palestinian refugees from Syria, Palestinian women’s stories and memories of dispossession, the psychological impact of being a refugee on Syrian men, the challenges facing persons living with Down Syndrome, prostitution in Lebanon, and the realities of domestic workers.

Muna is on the Board of Directors of three national Lebanese NGOs implementing social development, mental health care and hospice care programs within both the Lebanese, as well as the Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon.

Rehab Nazzal

Rehab Nazzal is a Palestinian-born multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. Her photography, video, and sound works deal with the effect of settler colonial violence on the bodies and minds of colonized peoples, and on the land, trees, and other non-human life in colonized territories. Nazzal's work has been exhibited in Canada, Palestine, and internationally in both group and solo exhibitions. She holds a PhD in Art and Visual Culture from Western University in London, ON, an MFA from Ryerson University in Toronto, a BFA from the University of Ottawa. She has received numerous awards including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral award.