Cláudia Varejão (1980, Portugal) was educated in film directing and camerawork in Lisbon, São Paulo and Berlin. Besides being a filmmaker, she works as a cinematographer on documentaries. She is the author of the short film trilogy Fim de semana (2007), Um dia frio (2009) and Luz da manhã (2012). In 2016 she made her feature debut, Ama-san. Her documentary Amor fati (2020) was selected for IFFR 2021. Varejão also developed a career as a photographer and creates video projects for theatre, performances and fine arts.

Maha Haj was born in Nazareth in 1970. She graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a degree in English and Arabic literature. Her cinematic experience stems from her work as an artistic designer on productions such as The Time That Remains by Elia Suleiman, The Attack by Ziad Doueiri, and On the Hill by Raphael Nadjari.

She wrote and directed the short film Oranges (2009) and the documentary Behind These Walls (2010). In 2015, she directed her first feature film Personal Affairs, which was selected for the 2016 Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection Un Certain Regard and received critical acclaim. The film also won the Best Feature Award at the Haifa Film Festival in 2016 and the Critics’ Award at the Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier, among others.

Her second feature, Mediterranean Fever, won the Best Screenplay award in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The film was screened at the 013 International Film Festival in 2023.