
Directing
Saeed Taji Farouky
UK
Saeed Taji Farouky is a Palestinian-British filmmaker and artist who has been producing work around themes of conflict, human rights and colonialism since 1998. He writes, directs and creates long-term, humanist art and film projects, and is lead tutor and course leader of the Re:Creative film school which offers free film education and training to people from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the film industry. In 2011 he was awarded a Senior TED Fellowship for his work, and he has previously been named Artist-In-Residence at the British Museum and Tate Britain. He has been a speaker and human rights educator with Amnesty International for over 10 years and has been teaching filmmaking and cinematography since 2009.
Acting credits
Behind the camera
7.7Using their bare hands, married couple Htwe Tin and Thein Shwe draw oil from a pit they drilled themselves on the land next to their house. There are lots of these “artisanal” oilfields dotted around Myanmar, where people have swapped crop cultivation for selling the oil they pump from the ground by hand.
A Thousand Fires
2021
7.7Using their bare hands, married couple Htwe Tin and Thein Shwe draw oil from a pit they drilled themselves on the land next to their house. There are lots of these “artisanal” oilfields dotted around Myanmar, where people have swapped crop cultivation for selling the oil they pump from the ground by hand.
A Thousand Fires
2021
NRWhen the Israeli army withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, it built a wall along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. This split the city of Rafah in half. Today virtually nothing crosses the border. Yet through an underground network of tunnels, people smuggle everything from weapons, food supplies to medicines. The film is produced for Al-Jazeera International.
Tunnel Trade
2007
NRWhen the Israeli army withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, it built a wall along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. This split the city of Rafah in half. Today virtually nothing crosses the border. Yet through an underground network of tunnels, people smuggle everything from weapons, food supplies to medicines. The film is produced for Al-Jazeera International.
Tunnel Trade
2007
Newlyn Harbour is the largest fishing village in Britain, but the fishermen and the people of the village are faced with making some difficult decisions if they want their village - and industry - to survive. Plans to commercialise the harbour, or introduce retail and pleasure boats, could save the industry but would also fundamentally change the character of Newlyn forever.
Newlyn Harbour
2010
Newlyn Harbour is the largest fishing village in Britain, but the fishermen and the people of the village are faced with making some difficult decisions if they want their village - and industry - to survive. Plans to commercialise the harbour, or introduce retail and pleasure boats, could save the industry but would also fundamentally change the character of Newlyn forever.
Newlyn Harbour
2010
NRThe Runner is a film about endurance. It is the story of a champion long-distance runner whose journey transformed him from an athlete into the symbol of a national liberation movement. Salah Hmatou Ameidan is willing to risk his life, his career, his family and his nationality to run for a country that doesn't exist. He is from Western Sahara, officially Africa's last colony and under Moroccan occupation since 1975.
The runner
2013
NRA political refugee living in London tries to get back to his home in Palestine to see his dying son.
Strange Cities Are Familiar
2019
NRA political refugee living in London tries to get back to his home in Palestine to see his dying son.
Strange Cities Are Familiar
2019
No synopsis available yet.
The Path of Most Resistance
2009
No synopsis available yet.
The Path of Most Resistance
2009
In May 2025, artist filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky collaboratively devised scenarios and filmed with people arrested and tried for pro-Palestinian activism. Together they built sets and performed idealised re-enactments of their police interviews and trials, re-enactments in which they said what they weren’t allowed to say in their real interviews and trials. In July 2025, the group with which some of those participants took action was banned as a terrorist organisation and an unprecedented crackdown on the language of Palestinian liberation began.
TERRORISM the TERRORISM land TERRORISM of TERRORISM common TERRORISM disgrace
2026
6.6When NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army (ANA) took over control of Helmand Province, an extremely dangerous region where attacks by Taliban fighters are the order of the day. Security, much less peace, would seem to be unattainable; it is even difficult to find a common language in a country where everyone mistrusts each other. The directors of this film accompanied an ANA company during a year of frontline duty in Helmand. The soldiers are paid irregularly, there are not enough supplies and their equipment is substandard. They cannot fight a war with the equipment left behind by the ISAF.
Tell Spring Not to Come This Year
2015
6.6When NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army (ANA) took over control of Helmand Province, an extremely dangerous region where attacks by Taliban fighters are the order of the day. Security, much less peace, would seem to be unattainable; it is even difficult to find a common language in a country where everyone mistrusts each other. The directors of this film accompanied an ANA company during a year of frontline duty in Helmand. The soldiers are paid irregularly, there are not enough supplies and their equipment is substandard. They cannot fight a war with the equipment left behind by the ISAF.
Tell Spring Not to Come This Year
2015
NRThere Will Be Some Who Will Not Fear Even That Void is an ecological film for the 21st century - a film about the future of our planet that turns the traditional environmental documentary on its head. Rather than looking at our influence on the environment, ...Even That Void examines the environment's influence on us - emotionally, psychologically and ethically. The film suggests that the limits to exploring and dominating nature are no longer technological, but moral. We now have the technology to 'conquer' virtually any part of the planet if we want to - the question is no longer 'can we' but 'should we'?
There Will Be Some Who Will Not Fear Even That Void
2013
NRThere Will Be Some Who Will Not Fear Even That Void is an ecological film for the 21st century - a film about the future of our planet that turns the traditional environmental documentary on its head. Rather than looking at our influence on the environment, ...Even That Void examines the environment's influence on us - emotionally, psychologically and ethically. The film suggests that the limits to exploring and dominating nature are no longer technological, but moral. We now have the technology to 'conquer' virtually any part of the planet if we want to - the question is no longer 'can we' but 'should we'?
There Will Be Some Who Will Not Fear Even That Void
2013
NRAn Aboriginal man is invited to London for the Colonial Exhibition of 1886.
They Live in Forests, They Are Extremely Shy
2016
NRAn Aboriginal man is invited to London for the Colonial Exhibition of 1886.
They Live in Forests, They Are Extremely Shy
2016
In January of 2004, in the northern Moroccan city of Tangiers, documentary filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky met a 26 year-old Moroccan named Abdelfattah. He was a clandestine, one of many Africans who try to cross the narrow Straits of Gibraltar and illegally enter Spain by stowing away on cargo ships or boarding inflatable rafts. By the end of their first meeting, Abdelfattah had agreed to let Saeed follow him to film every aspect of his journey.
I See The Stars At Noon
—
Hala, an Opera singer living in Rome, comes back to Cairo to claim her mother’s inheritance. This takes her on a journey across Cairo, meeting various people and many sides of the city to resolve her grief and the memories of her mother in the rough fantastical backdrop of the city.
Standing at the Ruins
—
Hala, an Opera singer living in Rome, comes back to Cairo to claim her mother’s inheritance. This takes her on a journey across Cairo, meeting various people and many sides of the city to resolve her grief and the memories of her mother in the rough fantastical backdrop of the city.
Standing at the Ruins
—
Hala, an Opera singer living in Rome, comes back to Cairo to claim her mother’s inheritance. This takes her on a journey across Cairo, meeting various people and many sides of the city to resolve her grief and the memories of her mother in the rough fantastical backdrop of the city.
Standing at the Ruins
—
We see a boy. We read a name. We view a landscape. We see a man. We see two children. A valley. A kite. A bicycle. A wall. The emotions are yours, not theirs. Not mine.
The Effect of All Peoples
2010

