Narrative feature jurors
Linda Mokdad is an Associate Professor of Film and English, and the Director of the Film Studies program at St. Olaf College. She is co-editor, with Corey Creekmur, of The International Film Musical (Edinburgh University Press, 2012) and is currently finishing a book on post-9/11 American cinema (under contract with Rutgers University Press). Her teaching and research topics are diverse, and include everything from classical Hollywood to world cinema.
Zaki Haidar is a Lecturer in Arabic at Carleton College, teaching courses in Arabic language and modern Arabic literature. His PhD research at the University of Pennsylvania focuses on Lebanese fiction, and the vexed relationship between the topos of Mount Lebanon and nationalist narratives. His research and teaching ranges more broadly across literary and intellectual movements in the modern Arab world.
Wessam El Meligi is assistant professor and the core of Arabic studies program at Macalester College. He has a PhD from the University of Alexandria in Egypt, studied at the University of Edinburgh, and was a Fulbright Scholar twice. He teaches classes on Arab cinema and comparative literature and has published on Arab and Iranian cinema, literature, television, and theatre.
Documentary feature jurors
Joëlle Vitiello is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Macalester College where she teaches courses on North African and Mediterranean film. Her research interests include representations of the nation in North African cinema and representations of the Algerian war of liberation from France. She has presented films from North Africa and participated in outreach programs and round-tables at the Walker Art Center in recent years.
Andrea Shaker is a professor of art at the College of St. Benedict | St. John’s University. She earned her BA in government and international relations from Georgetown University and her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana — Champaign. As an Arab American, her films, photographic artwork and writings draw from an exploration of the tension between a lived understanding of home and an imagined ancestral homeland.
Andrea Gyenge holds a Phd in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include continental philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of cinema and media, feminist philosophy, critical theory and visual culture. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Cultural Critique, New German Critique and Free Associations. She is working on a book manuscript (co-authored with Cesare Casarino) on HIV/AIDS documentary cinema and biopolitical philosophy. She currently teaches in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, where she is the instructor of record for “Documentary Cinema” (Fall 2018), and in the Department of Liberal Arts at MCAD.
Mohamed Yabdri is an award-winning performer from Oran, Algeria. Mohammed stars in two hit Algerian television shows, Sultan Achour 10, and Rap News Wahhh. He has presented his work as a theatre artist in every major Algerian city, Paris and Albi France, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, and Morocco. In the Twin Cities Mohammed has worked with a number of theaters and art spaces.
Short film jurors
E.G. Bailey Recently named one of Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film and a 2018 McKnight Artist; EG Bailey is an Ivey and Emmy award-winning artist, filmmaker, director and producer. With several awards to his credit his work is also archived at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and the film, Petting Zoo, which he edited; debuted at the 65th International Berlin Film Festival. His latest work includes the co-curation of America Now!, a special film project which has taken place at the Tampere Film Festival in Finland, Latvia and others; his recent film KEON ’18, his web series Brothers, and his film, New Neighbors, that premiered at the 2017 Sundance film festival and shown at over 100 festivals world-wide.
Shá Cage Recently named a 2017 Artist of the Year by City Pages – Cage is a film and theater maker and actor. She also produces and curates film and performance. Her work has taken her across the U.S, to Japan, South Africa, England, France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Mali, and Canada. She is honored to have received numerous awards including Iveys, Emmys and Fellowships. Currently she is writing a play titled Hidden Heroes about the Black Women of Nasa and producer on the documentary film 39 Seconds about the life of Negro Baseball legend John Donaldson.
Chelsea Arden Parker is a video and new media artist living in Minneapolis. She is currently working as a freelance video editor and has previously taught media literacy in youth afterschool programs and studio instruction at local cable access stations. Chelsea is currently the Film Festival Director for the Altered Esthetics Film Festival, an annual festival in the Twin Cities showcasing experimental video work. She is also the curator and co-organizer of Feminist Video Quarterly, a community for local non-binary and female filmmakers.
Reem El-Radi is an Associate Professor in the Art and Sciences Department at Dunwoody College of Technology. She received her PhD in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development from the University of Minnesota, with majors in Human Resources Development and Adult Education. Her research interest is on resettlement experiences of women refugees in Minnesota. Her doctoral research, “The Resettlement Experiences of Southern Sudanese Women Refugees” provided a deeper understanding of the process through which women refugees attempt to balance their life demands as they adjust to norms and values of the U.S. society.