Sara Ishaq
Sara Ishaq is a British-Yemeni film maker. Ishaq was born on 29 May 1984 in Edinburgh, before moving back to Yemen at the age of two. She grew up in Sana’a, Yemen until the age of 17. She returned to Edinburgh to complete her education, only to return a decade later and produce the critically acclaimed film Karama Has No Walls (2012).[1] The short film was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland New Talents, One World Media awards and for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). In 2013, she completed her first feature film ‘The Mulberry House’, which deals with her relationship with her Yemeni family against the backdrop of the country’s 2011 revolution.[2]
Education
Sara Ishaq attended Yemen Modern School (YMS) until the summer of 2001. At the age of 17, she continued her education at Linlithgow Academy for a year of high school (2001-2002) before her higher education. Ishaq then joined University of Edinburgh in 2003, where she obtained her MA (Honours) in Humanities and Social Sciences, with a focus on religious studies, social and political theory, International & Human Rights Law & Modern Middle Eastern Studies in 2007.
She returned to academia in 2010 to pursue an MFA in Film Directing from Edinburgh College of Art that she finished in 2012.
Humanitarian Pursuits
In 2011, Ishaq co-founded the #SupportYemen[3] Media Collective. An organizing and strategizing effort to advance social justice, build a democratic civic state, promote non-violence and break the silence on human rights violations in Yemen. At the headquarters in 2015, Ishaq "devised and ran" a two week documentary-making film course called "Comra". Comra was targeted at young aspiring Yemeni filmmakers. Adjacently, there was a 4 day Arts & Crafts workshop for children that had survived airstrikes.
Between 2012 – 2013, Sara Ishaq was the member of the interventions team with OpAntiSh (Operations Anti Sexual Harassmentt), an effort to patrol the protests at Tahrir Square against organized sexual assaults on women.
Her earliest and most prolonged humanitarian pursuit occurred in between 2009 till 2016, teaching rehabilitative yoga classes at the Nablus Women's Centre in Balata Refugee Camp (Palestine), as well as various studios across Cairo (Egypt), focusing on women suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Awards and Grants
The Mulberry House (2013)
- IDFA BERTHA Fund
- AFAC Crossroads Fund
- Jury Prize at This Human World Film Festival in Vienna
- Audience Favourite Award at Berwick Film Festival UK
Karama Has No Walls (2012)
- Nominations for Academy Award for Best Short Film 2014,
- One World Media Award 2013
- BAFTA Scotland New Talents Award 2012
- Winner of 5 International Film Awards including Al-Jazeera TV Documentary Award & United Nations Association Film Festival Award
Filmography
- 2013 The Mulberry House (Feature Documentary)
- 2012 Karama Has No Walls (Short Documentary)
- 2012 Marie My Girl (Short Drama)
Television credits[4]
- May - September 2007 "Women in Black": A five part documentary series about the lives of women in Yemen and Egypt. Role: Location Coordinator/Researcher/Translator.
- March - May 2011 Yemen Uprising for Newsnight & Our World Episodes. Role: Assistant Director / Camera Operator
- August - September 2012 Entrepeneurial Tribal Women – Media Trust. Role: Assistant Director/ Location Coordinator/ Translator
- March - April 2013 Yemeni Child Prisoners On Death Row for Channel 4 – Unreported World. Role: local producer
References
- ↑ http://oscar.go.com/nominees
- ↑ Robson, editors, Gabrielle Kelly, Cheryl (2014). Celluloid Ceiling. ; 21st Century Female Film Directors. Aurora Metro Publications Limited. p. 363. ISBN 9780956632906.
- ↑ Break the Silence. "Support Yemen". SupportYemen. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
- ↑ "Sara Ishaq". IMDb. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
- ↑ "Sara Ishaq's journey from making a family film to the Oscar-nominated documentary Karama Has No Walls | The National". Retrieved 2016-11-28.