Cora Josting

Festival Curator

Initiator of the Zait wa: Zaʕtar Festival. Current chairwoman of the Ibn Rushd Fund, a cofounder in 1998. Majoring in North American Studies, she since translated her knowledge to a MENA portfolio of topics. She worked in developing the Ibn Rushd Prize, initiated the Ibn Rushd Lectures (2011) and the Diwan al-Falsafa (2015). Cora created and executed Dou Lil Moustaqbal, a project with Refugee Women, funded by the German Ministry of Education as part of an integration + empowerment programm (2018), co- curated The Missing Journey of Ibn Battuta (2016) and Al Qafila, the Balkan Route of Refugees (2018).

Nahed Awwad

Festival Curator

An independent Palestinian filmmaker based in Berlin. She has worked in films and television since 1997. Nahed received her diploma from the European Film College in Denmark and has since released eight films (experimental, short, feature length formats), eg “25km”, “Going for Ride?”, “5 minutes from home”, “Gaza Calling”; all were meticulously researched. The ethos of Nahed’s filmmaking is to provide intimate access to the characters featuring in her films, so audiences can feel they know – and understand – the people they watched.

Ruth Abou Rached

An Honorary Research Associate for the University of Southampton, UK who specialises in teaching Translation Studies, Modern Foreign Languages and Arabic studies to widen university access for under-represented groups. She became part of the Ibn Rushd Fund whilst working as a postdoctoral researcher for a project focusing on Palestinian literature at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her interests in translation studies, Palestinian and other exilic literatures are inspired by her years of community work in the UK and living in the Middle East. Ruth is Chair of Migrant Support Action (MiRO), a UK-based organisation assisting refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants..

Yara Almunaizel

A researcher and social worker currently based in Berlin. She grew up between Amman, Jordan, and Berlin, Germany, and studied at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and the University of Lund, Sweden, from where she received her MA in Middle Eastern Studies. Before starting to work on her masters in Lund, Yara worked at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Ramallah, Palestine. Yara is passionate about refugee rights and migrations discourses, and currently works in a Youth Integration Center in Berlin.