Team

Leah Manasseh

Director

Leah Manasseh started her career as an actor and theatre director, but then magically fell into the world of film landing her first job as a producer/presenter for one of the first online web channels, Watchmojo.com.
She then started her own production company in Montreal, Delilah Productions and started producing a weekly community show, “Lui e Lei” for CJNT focusing on the Italian community of Montréal.

In 2007, Leah moved to the UAE where she started working as Line Producer for Al Jazeera News, Al Jazeera Documentary, and Al Jazeera Children, handling several series being filmed around the world.
Tired of sitting behind the desk, and with a thirst to travel the world and meet people, she decided to become a field producer and a researcher and taking on documentary projects from conception to delivery.
In 2010, Leah opened her own production company based in Dubai, The Traveling Shoe Productions, and started her own web channel : www.mydubaimycity.com, the first online webtv in the region, producing over 3,000 videos ranging from documentary web series, education content, tutorials, a city guide content.

She then went on to work in content creation and TVC productions…and this is where she lost herself and her passion for film.

To reignite her passion, she stopped working in the world of brands and decided to pursue an MFA in film at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Today, Leah considers herself a story teller, capturing stories and moments linked to family, heritage, and women creating an archive of stories for future generations.

Stephanie

Editor

Stephanie is an Italian/Lebanese video editor, animator, and photographer.
Born and mostly raised in Lebanon, she attended college at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA), where she pursued a double major in directing and photography. Her first short film “Diemension 4” was screened at the 14th European Film Festival in Beirut, in the Lebanese Short Films section.
In 2016, she completed a course in 2d animation at Escape Studios, London.

Stephanie has edited a number of international commercials, and in 2019, she edited the short film “Arabian Night” directed by Pierre Mouzannar which premiered at the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival in February 2020. The film, in official competition, won the Youth Jury Special Mention.

Later in 2019, she edited the short film “Manara” directed by Zayn Alexander; the film debuted at the 76th Venice Film Festival in the ‘Giornate Degli Autori’ section. The film was later nominated for the Tanit d’Or Award for Best Short Film at the 2019 Carthage Film Festival. The film won the silver Hypatia Award for Best Narrative Short Film at the 6th Alexandria Short Film Festival, and the Ahmed Khedr Award for Excellence in Arab Filmmaking at the ECU – European Independent Film Festival in 2020.

For more info: www.ploushka.com

Lynn Al Abiad

Colorist

Lynn considers herself very lucky to have to work with colors.

She discovered color grading when she first started working in post-production as an editing intern after she had finished her studies in film in 2016 and she immediately knew that becoming a colorist would be her career goal.

After two years of editing and some patience, she got lucky and started her career as a colorist in 2018.

She has worked on many kinds of projects like TV series and programs, ads, music videos, features, shorts and documentaries…

She is always looking for emotions in a project, and she enjoys dealing with people who are not afraid of expressing how they feel – it always makes her happy when she manages to understand these people and translate their feelings into colors.

She believes that Colors is a language, and she’s glad she knows how to speak it.

Haitham

Sound Design

Haitham Atme is 35 years old, born in Ain Ebel south Lebanon on November 20th 1984. He studied audio visuel at Alba, and graduated with master degree in 2009.

Haitham spends most of his days sitting behind a one meter thick isolated wall.

He is a man that expresses his emotions with sound. While most of us walk around town looking at the newest gadgets or envying the newest fashions, he secretly carries his microphone and samples sounds.

It is only with such dedication that he can achieve such detailing in sound design. Throughout his career Haitham has worked on over 100 TVC, more than 20 documentary and lots of motion video projects.

For him, it is not just about the “whooshes” and bangs, it is about creating a whole new level of detail and design… one that you have to HEAR to believe.

Anoushka Marien

Music composer

Born in Barcelona nineteen years ago, to a Spanish mother who is a singer and Dutch father who is a saxophone player, Anoushka Mariën, spent her childhood immersed in the world of music.

Her fascination for music and the role it plays in films started a very young age, she was always amazed on how much information could be passed on through a soundtrack beyond the image.

At the age of 7, she picked up her first instrument: the piano.

Four years later, Anoushka, enrolled in a more professional music school, and fell in love with instruments and started playing with much more feeling and emotion.

She knew at the point that she needed the feeling of playing music be part of her life forever, she knew she had to be a musician and she dreamt of going to the Conservatory.

Having finished her Bachelor at the Conservatory, she decided to travel to Amsterdam to learn how to compose music for films.

She joined the Codarts high school at the age of 17 to prepare her entrance to the Havo Vwo voor muziek en dans in Codarts, a highly esteemed conservatory in Europe.

Next year, Anoushka begins her journey in the conservatory where she will be focusing on Latin music Piano.