Koutaiba Al-Janabi

Koutaiba Al-Janabi was born in Baghdad, studied photography and cinematography in Budapest, Hungary. He wrote his PhD thesis on the aesthetics of Arabic cinema. He now lives in London and Baghdad. Koutaiba directs and produces his own short films and documentaries (The Train, Wasteland, The Ever Restless Man), with several of his films winning awards. Koutaiba is also a well regarded still photographer, with his work published and exhibited widely, as well as collected in two books of photography (Far from Baghdad, Foreign Light). His first feature length film as a director, "Leaving Baghdad", won first prize at the 2011 Gulf Film Festival, a British Independent Film Award in 2011 and was nominated for the Cinema for Peace Award 2012 in Berlin. The film was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2020. Koutaiba's visual personal journey, "Stories of Passers Through", a feature film shot over 30 years, was screened at the Dubai International Film Festival, shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the British Film institute in London, it won the Best International Experimental Feature Film title at the London International Motion Picture Awards, best director title at the MENA International film Festival in the Hague, best film at the Gothenburg Arabic Film Festival. "The Woodman", a feature film, completed in 2021, received the main jury prize at the Cairo Film Connection 2018 and also support from the Doha Film Institute. "The Cellar" is a feature film in pre-production. Further feature films in development: "Towns without borders" and "The Window". The BFI in London hosted a Masterclass with Koutaba, "The Art of Exile - Filmmaking Masterclass with Koutaiba Al-Janabi") in June 2019.