Raed Rafei

Born and raised in Tripoli, Lebanon, at the height of his country’s civil war, he has a keen interest in the human stories that lie at the heart of the transformations witnessed in the Arab world in recent years. To that end, he is regularly working on videos, documentaries and hybrid films.

For over ten years, he worked as a reporter for national and international publications covering political, social and economic issues in the Middle East. He also worked as a researcher, producer and director on many TV news reports and documentaries for channels like Al-Jazeera, CNN and ARTE. Since 2011, Rafei has produced independent hybrid films.

He made two feature films: 74 (The Reconstitution of a Struggle) (2012) and Here I am … Here you are (2017); and two short films: Prologue (2011) and Salam (2017). His films have screened at international film festivals and received many awards.

Raed Rafei is currently pursuing a PhD in Film and Digital Media at the University of California in Santa Cruz. His research and project interests lie in hybrid films that explore intersections between documentary and fiction to challenge narratives about his country’s tumultuous history. His film work has documented Lebanese leftist student movements from the 1970s through the modern lens of the Arab Spring, engaging young activist to question notions of revolution and change between past and present.

In more recent work, he has focused on intimate narratives as a means to explore the real and imagined boundaries between East and West and the questions of identity and sexuality in a globalized age.

Raed speaks Arabic, English, French and Italian fluently. He also speaks basic Spanish and Japanese.