Mahdi Fleifel / A World Not Ours

Mahdi Fleifel is a Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist based in London. He was born in Dubai, raised in the Ain El-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon and later in the suburbs of Elsinore, Denmark.

He graduated from the British National Film and Television School in 2009. His first short film, Shadi in The Beautiful Well (2003) and his most successful comedy, Arafat & I (2008), have won several awards.

In 2010 Fleifel set up the London-based production company Nakba FilmWorks with Patrick Campbell. 

Their first feature-length project, A World Not Ours (2012), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has since picked up awards at Brussels, Krakow, Reykjavik and Abu Dhabi, where it won the Black Pearl, the NETPAC and the FIPRESCI award. The film also received the Peace Film Prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2013 and recently won the prestigious Yamagata, Edinburgh and DOC:NYC Grand Prizes. (film pro)