TED Community » Saeed Taji Farouky
About Me
Saeed Taji Farouky is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer and writer whose work focuses on issues of human rights and social justice, often in the Middle East and North Africa. His work takes a creative approach to combining observational and investigative styles and his work stresses transparency, often referencing the relationship between filmmaker and subject.
Born in the UK to Palestinian/Egyptian parents, he grew up in London and Bahrain, and studied documentary photography at Boston's School for the Museum of Fine Arts. He began working as a documentary photographer and print journalist in 2004, the same year he directed his first documentary I See The Stars At Noon, in which he followed a Moroccan man as he attempted to cross into Spain illegally.
In 2009, Farouky was named Artist-in-Residence at Tate Britain, after twice being named Artist-in-Residence at the British Museum. His 2007 documentary, Tunnel Trade - about the underground smuggling economy through Gaza's tunnels - recently won Outstanding Short Documentary at the San Francisco Arab Film Festival. His work has been broadcast internationally on channels including Channel 4, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Al-Jazeera English and his films have been officially selected for The Geneva Human Rights Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival, London International Documentary Film Festival and the Watch Docs, amongst others.
In his spare time, Farouky is also a singer and songwriter (with the band Columbo) and a playwright (winner of the 2009 Angel Theatre New Writer Award)
- Location:
- United Kingdom, London Uk
- Current organization:
- Tourist With A Typewriter Ltd
- Current role:
- Documentary Filmmaker
- Gender:
- Male
- Areas of expertise:
- Human Rights, Social Justice/Human Rights, Middle East
- I am:
- Artist, Concerned citizen, Filmmaker, Journalist, Musician, Photographer, Producer, Writer/Editor
- Associations:
- Arab British Centre
- Languages:
- English, Arabic
- My website links:
- www.touristwithatypewriter.com, Taji
- Universities:
- Tufts University, School for the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston
- TED conferences attended:
- TEDGlobal 2012, TED2012, TEDGlobal 2011, TED2011, TED2010
More About Me
I'm passionate about
Making films, taking photographs, investigations, finding new ways of building trust with audiences, uncovering secrets, hearing and telling stories. And Flamenco.
An idea worth spreading
Penny-On. Effortless giving. Not my idea, but the brainchild of a genius friend. The idea is simple. Penny-On offers to add a penny on to the price of a range of products at the point of sale. You, the customer, agree to pay it. The penny goes to a sustainable development project.
You do it, and it raises a penny.
A million people do it, and it raises £10,000.
Ten million shoppers do it every day of the year...you get the idea...
http://www.pennyon.com/
Talk to me about
Ethics in media
Filmmaking, documentaries
Storytelling
The LHC at CERN
The Arctic
People don't know that I'm good at
Singing, Fencing,
Comments
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