Jess Ghannam, President
Jess Ghannam is a clinical professor and the Chief of Medical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. He also practices at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. Ghannam earned his Master’s and Doctorate in Psychology at UC-Berkeley in 1981 and 1984, respectively, and a Masters in Medical Sciences at UC-Berkeley in 1983.

Ghannam is the former president of the San Francisco chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, as well as a member of the international executive committee of Al-Awda, the Right to Return Coalition. Ghannam was also associate producer of the documentary Until when…, which examines the plight of Palestinian refugees. He is currently President of the Arab Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco and Co-Hosts a weekly radio show called “Arab Talk” on KPOO.

Bassam Totah, Treasurer
Board Treasurer Bassam Totah has been involved in a variety of human and civil rights issues for the past 25 years, on the local, national and international levels. He has served on many boards and committees that have addressed fostering pluralism and egalitarianism, including the Mayor’s Taskforce to write a human rights code for San Francisco. He has been a prosecutor with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office for the last 14 years. He is currently in charge of prosecuting felony Hate Crimes for San Francisco.

Jean-Paul Samaha
Board Member Jean-Paul Samaha specializes in the sale of residential property with Vanguard Properties in San Francisco. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, he came to the United States with his family in 1976 during the Lebanon civil war. He holds a Masters Degree in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute, and was a Fellow with the Coro Foundation. His public sector background includes policy positions in San Francisco government agencies such as the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Department, and volunteer positions with political organizations such as the Arab American Democratic Club, where he served as President, and on the Boards of community-based non-profit organizations, including the LGBT Community Center.

Emily Katz Kishawi
Board Member Emily Katz Kishawi has enjoyed fifteen years of senior non-profit management and volunteer activism in women’s rights and anti-hunger organizations. For the last year, Emily has provided communications and organizational development consulting to philanthropy, activist and grass-roots cultural organizations.

Prior to consulting, Emily headed communications for an international network of women’s foundations, the Women’s Funding Network. In her six years there, Emily thrived in an atmosphere of renewal and growth where she re-created the look, tone and content of all communications materials, re-built the organization’s membership department with a resultant fifty percent increase in membership, directly supported the organizational development of over a hundred member organizations, provided numerous trainings, presented regularly at philanthropy conferences and developed a year-long campaign on the World Wide Web that raised the voices of thousands of activists each month to such victories as asylum rights for sexually trafficked women, and a policy turn-around by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to support women’s rights in the Iraqi constitution.

Hassan Sassi
Board Member Hassan Sassi is a Senior Structural and Earthquake Engineer with URS Corporation in Los Angeles with 41 years of experience in structural dynamics, structural mechanics and earthquake engineering. He also is a member of the civil engineering faculty of Cal Poly Pomona and a retired professor of engineering of the University of Southern California.

Sassi’s love of music-dance and film mixed with his love of engineering and architecture has led him to become a board member of the Kan Zaman Community Ensample, where he served as the public relations director for 6 years and is a co-founder of the friends of MESTO music orchestra; his love of film led him to join the advisory board of the newly found Arab Film Festival (AFF) in Los Angeles, where he was instrumental in bringing the Arab film to the movie capitol of the world, Hollywood. He also is a promoter of a documentary film that one 8 golden awards, Occupation 101, directed by 2 Libyan-American brothers. He also contributed slides and music to the making of The Last Jews of Libya, a documentary about the history of Libyan Jews living in the Diaspora directed by Vivienne Roumani. Dr. Sassi has been recently approached to serve on the board of directors of the AFF.

Camille Alick

Board Member Camille Alick is Project Manager for MOST (Muslims On Screen and Television), a nonprofit organization that provides complimentary research, data, and expert consultations to Hollywood TV and film writers and producers for any of their characters or storylines pertaining to Muslims and Islam. Previously, Camille worked with the Writers Guild of America, West, where she planned events and coordinated activities within the Organizing Department, including Independent Film, Animation, Videogames, Reality and Public Policy. She also consulted with WGA’s Diversity Department on issues relating to the Middle East, Muslims and Islam. Camille currently serves as President of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee – Los Angeles and is on the marketing committee for Reading to Kids. Camille is a graduate of Purdue University.

Jumana Muwafi
Born in Beirut to Palestinian parents, Jumana moved to the US after completing her BSEE degree in Electrical Engineering at the American University of Beirut.  She received her Master in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and has held several positions at high-tech companies in the US. A senior manager at Synopsys, Inc, Jumana has extensive experience in managing cross-functional global teams in the US, Asia and Europe and leads product strategic planning and execution.  Jumana was a founding member of the Arab Film Festival and directed the festival in its first year.  She has also co-hosted a monthly Arabic music radio program for 3 years, broadcasting throughout the Bay Area.  Jumana has been involved in a variety of cultural and political activities in the Bay Area, some of which involved media interviews and events surrounding Dheisheh Palestinian refugees for promoting their messages to a broader audience in the US.  She also spent time working as a volunteer in refugee camps in Lebanon and Palestine coordinating children’s summer activities.  Jumana currently resides in San Francisco, California.

Zeena Fakoury
Zeena Fakoury is a Sales Director with Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito.  Born in the Bay Area, Zeena is the daughter of Lebanese emigrants who came to US in the 1950’s and 60’s.  Zeena received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from UC Davis in 1996 and was recognized as an Outstanding Graduating Senior Woman.  After working for Swiss-based executive search firm in Montreal for two years, Zeena returned to the US and pursued a career in hotel management. Zeena spent 10 years with Hyatt Hotel Corporation and Marriott Hotels before being recruited to help open a new independently-owned hotel in Sausalito.   She was the Vice President of the San Francisco chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and helped organize the group’s first large fundraising event.  Zeena resides in San Francisco, California.

Ghada Saliba-Malouf, Managing Counsel
Ghada Saliba-Malouf is Managing Counsel at Wells Fargo Bank. She is based in San Francisco and provides legal counsel and support to the Bank’s Wealth Management Group. For the past two years Ms. Saliba-Malouf has served on the Wells Fargo Enterprise Diversity Council. She co-chaired the Legal Group Diversity Council in 2004 and 2005 and is founder and co-chair of Arab American Connection Bay Area, an internal Wells Fargo Team Member Resource Group.

Ms. Saliba-Malouf has been involved in community causes for a number of years. She was appointed to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission (HRC) by Mayor Frank Jordan in 1995 and re-appointed by Mayor Willie L. Brown in 1996 where she served for eight years. She was Chair of the Commission from1999-2003. Her work on the Commission involved initiation of a progressive legislative agenda for the City and County of San Francisco which involved a number of civil rights initiatives such as the City’s Minority, Women and Local Business Enterprise Ordinance wherein Arab Americans were recognized as a minority for the first time in the United States. In addition, she sponsored and co-chaired a historic joint hearing by the HRC and the Social Policy Committee of the Board of Supervisors in January 2002 titled “backlash, violence, human rights violations and discrimination against the Middle Eastern communities in the wake of September 11, 2001.”

Ms. Saliba-Malouf received her BA in Legal Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and her JD from Golden Gate University. Ghada is married and has a seven year old daughter.

Hany Abu-Assad, Director
Hany Abu-Assad was born in Nazareth to a Palestinian family in 1961. After having studied and worked as an airplane engineer in The Netherlands for several years, he entered the world of cinema and television as a producer. In 2000, he and Bero Beyer founded Augustus Film. Since then, he has directed “Rana’s Wedding” (2002), “Ford Transit” (2002) and “Paradise Now,” which won the 2006 Golden Globe Award for best Foreign Language Film, an Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film, and was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Abu-Assad is currently developing several feature films in Los Angeles.

Asaad Kelada, Director
Asaad Kelada is Co-Founder of the Santa Barbara Theatre in Santa Barbara, California and is currently the Television & Stage Director. After graduating from the American University in Cairo, he traveled to the United States to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing from Yale in 1964. As a performer, he acted in several major Egyptian films, such as the classic “Bab el Hadid” (“Cairo Station”), directed by the acclaimed Youssef Chahine. He also sang at many important venues in Cairo, which led to long-running engagements at the famed Auberge des Pyramides. In the U.S., Asaad has directed over 450 episodes for major television networks, including such series as “The Facts of Life”, “Who’s the Boss?” and “Everybody Loves Raymond”. Asaad has also directed key productions for distinguished theatres around the country, including The Met and El Portal Center for the Arts, both in Los Angeles. Internationally, he has served as an advisor and creative consultant, developing new television series for Tele-Images, a French TV production company based in Paris.

Rashid Khalidi, Ph.D., Historian
Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Previously, he was President of the Middle East Studies Association and an advisor to the Palestinian delegation in the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. He is the author of The Iron Cage (2006), Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (2004), and Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (1997). He has written over eighty scholarly articles on aspects of Middle East history and politics, as well as op-ed pieces in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Nation. Dr. Khalidi has been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, the BBC, Radio France Inter, the CBC and the Voice of America.

Tony Shalhoub, Actor
Tony Shalhoub, actor, director, and producer, currently stars as Adrian Monk, in the television series MONK. He has had leading roles in dozens of feature films, most recently providing the voice of Luigi in the Pixar hit film, “Cars,” as well as in the soon to be released “1408″. Shalhoub made his feature directorial debut with the independent film “Made Up,” in which he co-starred with his wife, Brooke Adams. He will also be releasing “AmericanEast”, an independent film that he co-produced, later this year. His experience extends off-screen and on-stage, including many New York theater appearances, proving himself to be one of the most versatile and popular character actors working today.

Kathy Najimy, Actor
Kathy Najimy is known internationally for her portrayal of “Sister Mary Patrick” in the blockbuster hits Sister Acts 1 and 2.She has also appeared in leading roles on Broadway, on television and in her own original off-Broadway play The Kathy and Mo Show which garnered her an Obie Award. For her 20 years of AIDS activism, she has been honored with the L.A. Shanti’s Founder award as well as the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Distinguished Achievement Award. As a proud Lebanese-American, Kathy has received awards from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Arabic Museum of Tolerance and the Arab Comedy Festivals Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2005, she was Ms. Magazine’s Woman of the Year.

Alice Nashishibi, Arab Community Leader
Alice Nashashibi has been an active member of the Arab American community for over 20 years, having served as president of the Arab Cultural Center in San Francisco and formerly president of the local chapter of the National Association of Arab Americans. She also served as director of the Diablo International Resource Center in Walnut Creek for eight years and worked as a Spanish teacher. She is a graduate of New York University with a Master’s degree in Latin American studies and Secondary Education.

Jack Shaheen, Ph.D., Media Critic
Internationally acclaimed author and media critic, Dr. Jack G. Shaheen, is a committed internationalist and a devoted humanist. A Pittsburgh-native and former CBS news consultant on Middle East Affairs, Shaheen’s lectures and writings illustrate that damaging racial and ethnic stereotypes of Asians, blacks, Native Americans and others injure innocent people. Dr. Shaheen is the author of four books: Nuclear War Films, Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, The TV Arab and the award-winning book [and DVD] Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. His writings include 300-plus essays in publications such as Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post to chapters on media stereotypes in dozens of college textbooks. He has appeared on national network programs such as CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Nightline, Good Morning America, 48 Hours, and The Today Show. Dr. Shaheen has served as a consultant on “Three Kings,” “Syriana” and other feature films; he has worked with film and TV companies like DreamWorks, Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, and Showtime.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Author and Poet
Naomi Shihab Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas. Her recent books include You & Yours, Going Going, A Maze Me, 19 Varieties of Gazelle; Poems of the Middle East (a National Book Award finalist in 2002), Come with Me: Poems for a Journey, Fuel, Red Suitcase and Habibi ,a novel for teens which won 6 Best Book awards. She has edited seven anthologies of poetry for young readers, including This Same Sky, The Tree is Older than You Are, The Space Between our Footsteps: Poems & Paintings from the Middle East, What Have You Lost? and Salting the Ocean. A visiting writer for many years all over the world, she has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Library of Congress Witter Bynner Fellow.

Mario Kassar, Producer
Co-president of C-2 Pictures, Mario Kassar is known as a major innovator in international motion picture production, financing and distribution. He served as Executive Producer of such hits as “Rambo”, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (grossed over $500 million dollars worldwide and winner of four Academy Awards), “Basic Instinct” (garnered two Oscar nominations), “Total Recall”, “Cliffhanger” (earned two Oscar nominations) and “Stargate”, among many others. In total, his films as producer and executive producer have grossed nearly $3 billion in worldwide theatrical box office returns, making him one of the most creative and prolific filmmakers in the motion picture industry.

Joan Widdifield, Ph.D., Filmmaker
Joan Widdifield is a film critic and journalist for a San Francisco based nationally syndicated Public Radio show. She graduated with honors from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology with her practice and expertise in psychological trauma; she co-wrote a book about child sexual abuse for professionals in 2005. She served on the board of Community Violence Solutions from 2001 to 2006. She is the Psychological Advisor to Clear Path International, a victim-assistance NGO that serves victims of unexploded ordnance (uxo), in Vietnam, Cambodia and the border of Burma and Thailand. She is a member of Civil Society working on the Oslo International Treaty to ban cluster munitions. She is the Producer-Director of a feature length documentary film in post-production, about the victims of the uxo leftover from the American war in Vietnam. Since the late 1970′s she has been interested in Middle Eastern issues and, believes that the most accessible medium for cross-cultural understanding is film arts. She is honored to serve on the board of the Arab Film Festival, especially in these times of misunderstanding.

Mhamed Ibnabdeljalil, Ph.D., Entrepreneur
Mhamed Ibnabdeljalil, a former AFF board member, is currently the Executive Director of Sales & Marketing at the Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP), a Mining and Chemical company headquartered in Casablanca, Morocco. Prior to, M’hammed spent the better part of his career in the semi-conductor industry in various roles and companies ranging from Fortune 100 companies to early stage startups, to Management consulting. He earned a BS and MS in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of London and a PhD in Theoretical & Applied Mechanics from Cornell University.

Dina Saba, Founder
Dina Saba is a long-time Bay Area resident. Dina works in the Pharmaceutical Industry, specifically on HIV drug development. She holds a Chemistry degree from San Jose State University, Program and Project Management Certificate from San Jose State University Professional Development, a Project Management Certificate (PMP) from the Project Management Institute, and an MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. She also founded the Arab Film Festival in 1996 and managed the festival through 2004.

Intishal Al Timimi
Intishal Al Timimi is a Photographer and journalist. He was born in 1954, Baghdad and holds a Master of Art in journalism from Moscow University. He is the artistic director of the Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam and programme advisor of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Intishal is the coordinator of the following:
-30 years Arab documentaries for the Munchen International Film Festival 1996
-Arab film festival, Montréal – Canada 1999, Ismailia International Film Festival,
-10 years European Cinema for the 6 Ismailia International Film Festival
-Iraqi retro for 7e Binnale des cinemas arabes a Paris 2004
-Iraqi retro for First Arab Film Festival-Tokyo 2005
-Arabic Programmer for the 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th editions festival of Asian’s Cinefan 2004 – 2008 Delhi.
-Arabic programmer for the 19th 20th 21st Singapore International Film Festival 2006-2008.

Member of the International Jury of:
-Parma International Film Festival – Italy 1989
-13th Munchen International Documentary Film Festival/ Germany 1997
-18^th Singapore International Film Festival 2005
-First International Iraq Short Film Festival 2005
-10th Ismailia International Film Festival/ Egypt 2006
-5th Amal Film Festival of the Euro Arab Cinema / Santiago de Compostilla.
-10th Med Film Festival / Roma 2007.
-5th Muskat International Film Festival 2007
- Member of the Netpac Jury of the International Film Festival of Kerala 2005, Berlenale 2007, Locarno 2007, Karlovy Vary 2008.
- Member of the selection comity of Price for Visual Arts/Evens Foundation 2004
- Member of The Jury of the 2007 Prince Claus Fund Film Grant for a 2007 CineMart project.

He has held several photo exhibitions in different countries (Damascus, Berlin, Delft, The Hague and Brussels) & Writing in several Arab News papers & Magazines.

Peter Boyle, Arab Film Festival Legal Advisor
Peter Boyle has been a lawyer in San Francisco for approximately 40 years. After being a partner in two firms, he began an independent practice in 1982, and since then, he has focused his services on business transactional matters, nonprofit corporations, and estate planning. Previously, he served as general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. Mr. Boyle received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kathy Saade Kenny
Board President Kathy Saade Kenny is a strategic planning and organization development consultant whose clients have included foundations and nonprofit organizations throughout the United States, including the Council on Foundations, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She holds a Masters in Social Work and is a graduate of the Coro Foundation’s civic leadership program. In addition to the Arab Film Festival board, she serves as a director of the Foundation for Osteopororis Research and Education. She resides in Oakland, California and Mexico.

Michel Shehadeh, Executive Director
Executive Director Michel Shehadeh is a long time Arab American activist. He is the former West Coast regional director of the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC) and a member of the landmark Los Angeles Eight Case. His writings appeared in many English and Arabic publications such as the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Middle East Report, Al-Jazeera net and Al-Adab magazine. Mr. Shehadeh holds a BA in Journalism and a Master’s in Public Policy Administration from California State University, Long Beach. He produced and directed videos such as Edward Said at a Glance and Lest We Forget. His wide media experience includes co-founding successful programs such as Radio Intifada at KPFK in Los Angeles, extensive interviews by print, radio and TV, and serving as a technical and cultural consultant on major films such as the Prince of Egypt, Three Kings, and Princess and the Marine. He is well known as a national public speaker on Arab issues and the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Mr. Shehadeh assumed the role of Executive Director of the Arab Film Festival early 2008.

Daniella Jubran, Program Director
Program Director, Daniella Jubran, is majoring in English Literature at SFSU. She has been volunteering with the AFF for the past several years and joined the AFF staff in 2009. She spent two years in Italy studying Italian Film and Cinema. Daniella recently returned from Palestine where she was studying at Birzeit University and volunteering with human rights organizations. She is fluent in Italian and Arabic and plans to pursue her Masters degree in Arabic.

Naser Halteh, Festival Coordinator
Festival Coordinator, Naser Halteh, is completing his MBA at Golden Gate University and has been working with AFF since January 2009. His experience includes student organzing for Arab Art and Culture on SFSU campus. He has non-profit experience of three years where he published a book of health information for young men.

Sharif Ezzat, Design Director
Design Director Sharif Ezzat is a multimedia artist based in San Francisco. In 1998 he started GoodFood Productions, through which he works in a wide variety of digital media, from web sites to interactive kiosks and installations. His work has been featured by Adbusters, the Electronic Literature Organization, and the San Francisco International Film Festival. Sharif has toured extensively with human beatbox artist Yuri Lane, providing multimedia visuals for Yuri’s theatrical and musical performances. Each year he dedicates a portion of his time to helping produce the Arab Film Festival, providing print, web, and motion graphics design expertise.