Dr Yasmin Fedda, BA, MA, PhD, FHEA

Profile

My work as a filmmaker, researcher, and film programmer has focussed on themes that broadly fit under film, anthropology, and political sciences, with a focus on documentary, interactive storytelling, forced migration, representation, film & ethics, language, disability, activism and human rights.

I have over 15 years film experience and my film work has been award-winning, BAFTA-nominated and screened at numerous international festivals including Sundance & Edinburgh Film Festival, and I have made films for the BBC and Al Jazeera. My films have been on subjects from Edinburgh bakeries (Breadmakers, 2008), technology and activism (Steal from the Capitalists, 2015) and poetry (Waiting for Spring, 2012; Found in Translation, 2016). I have made several feature length films in Syria or on Syrian subjects including A Tale of Two Syrias (2012), Queens of Syria (2014) about an ancient Greek play being re-enacted by a group of Syrian refugee women in Jordan, and Ayouni (2022) about forced disappearances. 

I am currently a Fellow of the Institute for Humanities and Social science (IHSS) at QMUL.

I am Co-Investigator, as a practiced based researcher, on a large multi country research project titled Protracted Displacement Economies (https://www.displacementeconomies.org/) whose long-term goal is to help realise the vast economic potential of displacement-affected communities around the world.

The Pathogen of War (2023) is my most recent work, an immersive documentary installation about the world's most antibiotic resistant bacteria and the research of Iraqi medical anthropologist Dr. Omar Dewachi, which had it's preview at the Battersea Arts Centre as part of Shubbak Festival 2023. It was supported by a residency at the National Theatre Immersive Storytelling Studio and CPH:Lab.

I have held artist residences at the Mothlight Micro Cinema, Detroit, and at the British School at Rome, Italy.

I have programmed film festivals including Reel Afghanistan (2008) Reel Iraq (2009 & 2013), Reel Syria (2012),  and the strand Global Racialisations at the RAI Film Festival (2021), amongst others.

I have taught different aspects of film, both theory and practice, in various settings around the world including with: Syria Mobile Film Festival, British Council, Scottish Documentary Institute, Bidayyat for Audiovisual Arts, TPD Hanoi, Malta City of Culture, The University of Peshawar, The University of Addis Ababa, Basma and Zeitoneh, amongst others.

I received my Masters in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester and PhD in Trans-Disciplinary Documentary Film from the University of Edinburgh.

Teaching

Research

Research Interests:

Documentary

Anthropology

Political sciences

Migration

Representation

Film & ethics

Language

Activism

Human rights

Interactive and immersive storytelling/documentary

Publications

Films and Installations (with selected exhibitions)

2023 The Pathogen of War (Director). Preview commissioned by Shubbak and Battersea Arts Centre. Supported by CPH:Lab and National Theatre Immersive Storytelling Studio.

2020 Blink and You’ll Miss Us (Producer). Funded by Toronto Authors Festival.21 micro-film poems by Afghan and Canadian filmmakers featuring poems by Aria Aber.

2020 Ayouni (Director) Produced by Banyak Films & Hakawati. www.ayounifilm.com Select highlights: World Premiere CPH:Dox 2020; Commendation RAI Film Prize, Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival 2021; 4* Guardian review Noura and Machi search for answers about their loved ones –Bassel Safadi and Paolo Dall’Oglio, who are among the over 100,000forcibly disappeared in Syria.

2016 Found in Translation, A Digital Poetry Film Project Made in Iraq(Director)A series of films funded by British Council. A Ghazal for the Tethered Goatw/Kei Miller (2:00)An Imminent Dawn w/ Ahmad Abdul Ghussein (4:17)A Man Dies in Me w/ Zhawen Shally (01:19)Moot w/Steven Fowler (01:40)A Letter to my mother in the year 1980 w/Miriam al Attar (01:44)Prayer at seventy w/ Vicki Feaver (01:21)Curriculum Vitae w/Ali Wajeeh (02:04) In the year ninety w/ Nia Davis (01:40)Wait, Listen, If w/ Ryan Van Winkle (02:16)

2015 Abu Hawash(01:00)(Director) Syria Off Frame exhibition, Imago Mundi, Luciano Benetton Collection. Deraa Mijwizz legend Abu Hawash plays a song.

2015 Rebel Geeks: Steal from the Capitalists (Director) Al Jazeera English, produced Banyak Films.Evan “Rabble” Henshaw-Plath is a coder, activist, anarchist, and a hacker and one of the original developers of Twitter.

2014 Queens of Syria(70:00) (Director) Festival release; theatrical release; BBC broadcast Funded by SANAD, Asfari Foundation, British Council, BBC. Select highlights: Best Documentary Director, Abu Dhabi FF(2014); Best Female Director, Carthage FF (2015); Best Doc, Arab FF, Minneapolis (2016) and screened at over 50 festivals. Queens of Syria tells the story of fifty women from Syria, all forced into exile in Jordan, who came together in Autumn 2013 to create and perform their own version of the Trojan Women.

2013 Siamo Tornati (08:00) (Director) Funded by British School at Rome & Creative Scotland. Select highlights: screened at international film festivals and galleries across Italy, including at the British School at Rome & Upper Lab (Bergamo). In the San Giovanni district of Rome, boxing teacher Gianni and activists come together to create a squatted gym, school and community centre.

2012 A Tale of Two Syrias (65:00) (Director )Produced by Cadies Productions & Freedonia Films. Funded by University of Edinburgh PhD Scholarship. Select highlights: screened at Glasgow FF (2013), Birds Eye View FF (2013) What the dream of freedom means to two very different people in the face of a brutal regime.

2012 Poets of Protest: Waiting for Spring (Director) Al Jazeera English. Creative documentary portrait on renowned and outspoken Syrian poet Hala Mohammad. 

2008 Moving Pictures (Director) Commissioned by The Garvald Centre. Four artist portraits and animations, made with artists with learning disabilities.

2007 Breadmakers(Director) Produced by Cadies Productions; commissioned by Scottish Documentary Institute.Select highlights: Bafta nominated for Best Short film; Best Scottish Short, Edinburgh FF (2007); Black Pearl Short Doc Award, Middle East FF (2008), screened at Sundance (2008) and over 50 festivals. Screened at Special Olympics (2011), part of Sundance Collection, among others. At a unique Edinburgh bakery, a community of workers with learning disabilities makes a variety of organic breads for daily delivery to shops and cafes in the city.

2004 Milking the Desert (Director)Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology. Select highlights: Shortlisted for Jerwood First Cuts Award (2004), screened at Sheffield Doc Fest, Bilan du Film Ethnographique and others.  Frederic came from France to become a novice at the St. Moses Abyssinian monastery in the desert of Syria. We follow him and Syrian monk Boutrous through their daily chores and routines.

Articles

Time, grief and hope on film, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2023

Filming the Invisible, Newlines Magazine, 2020

Keeping Aleppo Alive: on the work of filmmakers in Aleppo, The Middle East in London magazine, Volume 13, Issue 1, 2016

Creation and Displacement –Developing New Narratives Around Migration, IETM –International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts Co-author with Daniel Gorman, 2016

Rebel Geeks -Steal from the Capitalists, Al Jazeera English, 2015

The Cinema of Defiance, on Syrian cinema, Critical Muslim, Issue 11,  Co-author with Daniel Gorman, 2013

Hala Mohammad-Waiting for Spring,  Al Jazeera English, 2012