Jehane Noujaim
 |
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| Jehane Noujaim | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 17, 1974 Cairo, Egypt |
| Occupation | Documentary film director |
| Years active | 1996-Present |
Jehane Noujaim (Egyptian Arabic: چيهان نچيم, IPA: [ʒeˈhæːn nʊˈʒeːm]) is an Egyptian American documentary film director best known for her films Control Room, Startup.com and Pangea Day.
[edit] Career
Jehane Noujaim is a filmmaker, born in Washington DC and raised in Kuwait and Cairo. She moved to Boston in 1990, where she attended Milton Academy, matriculated to Harvard University in 1992 and graduated magna cum laude in Visual Arts and Philosophy. The same year, before her graduation, Noujaim was awarded the Gardiner fellowship under which she directed Mokattam, an Arabic film about a garbage collecting village near Cairo in Egypt. She joined the MTV News and Documentary division as a segment producer for the documentary series, UNfiltered. Noujaim left her job at MTV to produce and direct Startup.com in association with Pennebaker Hegedus Films. The feature length, highly acclaimed documentary has won numerous distinguished awards including the DGA and IDA Awards for best documentary. She has since worked in both the Middle East and the United States as a [cinematographer] on various documentaries including Born Rich (Jamie Johnson), Only the Strong Survive (Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker), and Down from the Mountain (D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Nick Doob). In 2004, she directed the feature length, highly acclaimed film Control Room, a documentary about US Central Command and its relations with Al Jazeera and other news organizations that covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2007, she co-directed (with Sherief El Katsha) the film Shayfeen.com which was broadcast as part of the WhyDemocracy project. In 2008, she launched Pangea Day (www.pangeaday.org) in collaboration with the TED Conferences.
[edit] Pangea Day
After winning the TED Prize Jehane used her wish to organize Pangea Day, a live videoconference that took place in New York City, Rio de Janeiro, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali on May 10, 2008. The show was internationally broadcasted over 4-hours through internet, television and mobile phones. It featured films, speakers, and music.
