Matthew Cassel

Directing

Matthew Cassel

Born

1982-03-23 (44)

Place of birth

Lebanon

Known for

Directing

Credits

11 titles

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” — Lewis Wickes Hine Matthew Cassel is an independent visual journalist and documentary filmmaker based in the Mediterranean region. For more than two decades, his reporting has focused on people affected by conflict, displacement, and political upheaval across the Middle East and beyond. […] Since 2023, he has reported extensively from Israel/Palestine for The Guardian, The New York Times, Channel 4 News, BBC, and others. He created and reported The Guardian series Along the Green Line, which won an Emmy in 2026. […] Previously, Cassel spent four years as an on-air correspondent for VICE News, reporting from mor…

Known for

VICE poster
8.3

The Emmy®-winning documentary series is now on SHOWTIME, delivering immersive reporting from the frontlines of global conflicts, civil uprisings and beyond, and tackling untold and complex geopolitical stories from all corners of the globe.

VICE

2020

Along the Green Line poster
NR

Since the war in Gaza and the expanding occupation of the West Bank, a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians feels more distant than ever. In this three-part series, the reporter Matthew Cassel travels along the 1949 Armistice border, or ‘Green Line’, once seen as the best hope for a resolution. He meets Palestinians and Israelis living just kilometres apart, but shaped by vastly different realities.

Along the Green Line

2025

The Journey poster
NR

Field of Vision and The New Yorker have created a six-part episodic documentary, filmed in 2015, that immerses us in the Syrian refugee crisis. Matthew Cassel, an independent multimedia journalist and filmmaker based in Istanbul, follows the seven-month, obstacle-laden 1700-mile journey of Aboud Shalhoub, a Syrian refugee who has fled the dangers of wartime Damascus in order to build a better life for his family in the Netherlands. Cassel's colleague Simon Safieh remained in Damascus with Aboud's wife and two children, who eventually join him in Europe.

The Journey

2016

Farming Under Fire in Gaza poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Farming Under Fire in Gaza

2018

Obaida poster
NR

OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.

Obaida

2019

No artwork available
NR

While international recognition of a Palestinian state has gathered momentum, the situation on the ground is moving in the opposite direction. Israel’s government has advanced new annexation legislation, settlement growth is accelerating, and daily life for Palestinians is becoming more restricted and precarious. In this series, reporter Matthew Cassel travels through the West Bank to document what daily life looks like under deepening occupation. Starting in Hebron and moving north to Ramallah, villages outside the city, and finally Nablus, he meets people across generations to ask; what does the idea of a ‘Palestinian state’ mean today?

In Search of Palestine

2026

Film credits

Series credits

Behind the camera

Along the Green Line poster
NR

Since the war in Gaza and the expanding occupation of the West Bank, a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians feels more distant than ever. In this three-part series, the reporter Matthew Cassel travels along the 1949 Armistice border, or ‘Green Line’, once seen as the best hope for a resolution. He meets Palestinians and Israelis living just kilometres apart, but shaped by vastly different realities.

Along the Green Line

2025

Along the Green Line poster
NR

Since the war in Gaza and the expanding occupation of the West Bank, a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians feels more distant than ever. In this three-part series, the reporter Matthew Cassel travels along the 1949 Armistice border, or ‘Green Line’, once seen as the best hope for a resolution. He meets Palestinians and Israelis living just kilometres apart, but shaped by vastly different realities.

Along the Green Line

2025

Along the Green Line poster
NR

Since the war in Gaza and the expanding occupation of the West Bank, a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians feels more distant than ever. In this three-part series, the reporter Matthew Cassel travels along the 1949 Armistice border, or ‘Green Line’, once seen as the best hope for a resolution. He meets Palestinians and Israelis living just kilometres apart, but shaped by vastly different realities.

Along the Green Line

2025

The Journey poster
NR

Field of Vision and The New Yorker have created a six-part episodic documentary, filmed in 2015, that immerses us in the Syrian refugee crisis. Matthew Cassel, an independent multimedia journalist and filmmaker based in Istanbul, follows the seven-month, obstacle-laden 1700-mile journey of Aboud Shalhoub, a Syrian refugee who has fled the dangers of wartime Damascus in order to build a better life for his family in the Netherlands. Cassel's colleague Simon Safieh remained in Damascus with Aboud's wife and two children, who eventually join him in Europe.

The Journey

2016

Farming Under Fire in Gaza poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Farming Under Fire in Gaza

2018

Obaida poster
NR

OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.

Obaida

2019

Obaida poster
NR

OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.

Obaida

2019

No artwork available
NR

While international recognition of a Palestinian state has gathered momentum, the situation on the ground is moving in the opposite direction. Israel’s government has advanced new annexation legislation, settlement growth is accelerating, and daily life for Palestinians is becoming more restricted and precarious. In this series, reporter Matthew Cassel travels through the West Bank to document what daily life looks like under deepening occupation. Starting in Hebron and moving north to Ramallah, villages outside the city, and finally Nablus, he meets people across generations to ask; what does the idea of a ‘Palestinian state’ mean today?

In Search of Palestine

2026