Vanessa Filho is a French writer and director, whose first feature film Gueule d’ange (2018) starring Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard, was praised by the critics and was shown in numerous festivals, including the prestigious Cannes section Un Certain Regard. Vanessa Filho is known for her authentic and emotional style of filmmaking, where she explores pertinent themes such as the family, femininity and the societal issues of the everyday.
© Sarah Lee
Jason Allen-Paisant is a Jamaican poet, writer and academic whose work explores the philosophies shaping artists and communities of the African diaspora. He won the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature with his first book of poems, Thinking with Trees (Carcanet Press, 2021) and the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best Collection with Self-Portrait as Othello (Carcanet Press, 2023). Paisant is also a Senior Lecturer in Critical Theory and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.
© Marie Marot
Anne Berest is known as the co-author of the bestselling How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are and the author of a novel about Françoise Sagan's life. Collaborating with her sister Claire, she wrote Gabrielle, a well-received biography of their great-grandmother, Marcel Duchamp's muse. Berest, the great-granddaughter of painter Francis Picabia, has been featured in publications like French Vogue and Haaretz for her writing and award-winning television work. Her book The Postcard was a Prix Goncourt finalist and remains a bestseller in France.
Related / Latest Publication:
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The Postcard, 2022, Europa Editions translated by Tina Kover |
Sander Berg is Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish and Iberian Studies and the head of modern languages at the elite Harrow School. Originally from the Netherlands, Berg is also a freelance translator, publishing English translations of literary texts, children’s books and art history books from French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese. War (Alma Books, 2024) is the first English-language translation of the uncorrected proofs of Guerre by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, published posthumously in 2022.
© Frank Ribiere
Born and raised in Marseille, in an Italian-Corsican family, Vérane Frédiani is now based in London. Initially a film journalist and TV host, she transitioned to film production and directing. Her latest project is the documentary Re-inventing Mirazur about chef Mauro Colagreco. Taste the World in Marseille celebrates the diverse cuisine and talents of her hometown.
Related / Latest Publication:
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Taste The World in Marseille, 2023, translated by Alexis Steinmann |
© Yohanne Lamoulère
Mary Fitzgerald is a writer and researcher based in Marseille. She has written about her adopted city for the Guardian, Monocle, and the Irish Times. A non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, she specialises in Libya and the wider Mediterranean.
Robert Guédiguian is one of the founding producers of AGAT FILMS - EX NIHILO, a collective of associated producers.
From Last Summer (1980) to And the Party Goes On (2023), Robert Guédiguian has built up a very powerful and coherent body of work. His films have become emblematic of the city of Marseille, where most of them were shot, and display a unique emotional richness: love, friendship, roots, and violence are evoked in an impassioned, original and politically committed manner.
Malu Halasa is a Jordanian Filipina American writer and editor based in London. Her books include: The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design (2008); Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images (2004) and Creating Spaces of Freedom: Culture in Defiance (2002). Mother of All Pigs (2017) is her first novel.
© Ameer al-Halbi
Caroline Hayek is a Franco-Lebanese journalist based in Lebanon. Following her series of reports on the explosions that rocked Beirut, she was awarded the Albert Londres Prize in 2021. She continues to investigate societal issues within the French-language daily, L'Orient-Le Jour. She discusses the challenges faced in this country marked by civil war and economic crisis.
Professor Lina Khatib is the Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at SOAS University of London, where she is MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies and Professor of Practice in the Department of Politics and International Studies.