BEIRUT: ALL FLIGHTS CANCELED

Originally from Lebanon, Katia Saleh is now based in London making films predominantly on the Middle East. She has recently completed 'Organized Chaos' about the current state of turmoil in Lebanon and 'Deadly Playground' on the lives of children amongst the One million unexploded cluster bombs that the Israeli forces have dropped across south Lebanon. In 2006, Katia also directed and produced three films for Al Jazeera English, for which she has won several awards- 'Beirut: All Flights Cancelled' filmed in Lebanon during the war in July 2006, 'Ashura: Blood and Beauty', a contemporary look on the 1300-year-old Shia ritual, and 'The Singing Barber of Mosul', about an Iraqi barber whose dream is to become a super star. Katia has previously worked on various films for Channel 4, ITV and BBC. She has directed a short film for BBC World Service on young girls in Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia and taught them how to use audio-visual techniques to tell their personal stories. She produced the critically acclaimed Channel 4 Dispatches, Iraq: Women’s Stories and trained two Iraqi women to use digital cameras and travel for three months all over the country and record the reality of everyday life for women inside Iraq. She has also co-produced and filmed the Channel 4 documentary Return to Basra and ITV's John McCarthy's Return to Lebanon. She was an Associate Producer on Channel 4’s Iraq: The Hidden Story and the 2004 ITV series Inside Saddam’s Iraq.