Biography
Butheina Kazim is the co-founder of Cinema Akil, an independent cinema platform in Dubai.
She has been involved in programming a number of cinema pop-ups, including Focus on the United Arab Emirates, Kurzfilmwoche (Short Film Week), Regensburg, Germany (2015) and The Pavilion Downtown Dubai, Abu Dhabi Film Festival (2011).
Kazim is the producer of the short documentary film Letters to Palestine, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (2010). She has served on the jury for the iEmmys Asia & Africa Competition; International Competition, Kurzfilmwoche, Regensburg; Imagine Science Film Festival AD and A Shaded View on Fashion Films (ASVOFF), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and she is a member of the UAE Academy Award Committee. She has contributed to publications such as Gulf News, Jadaliyya and the Art Dubai blog and worked as a project manager in television and radio stations in the UAE at the media conglomerates Arab Media Group and Dubai Media Incorporated.
Kazim holds a bachelor’s degree in design (with honours) from York University/Sheridan College Program in Design, Toronto (2007) and a master’s degree in media, culture and communication (with a concentration in global and transcultural studies) from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, New York (2013). She was a Fulbright scholar at New York University from 2011 to 2013.
Born in 1984 in Manama she currently lives between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
