Alaa Mansour is an artist, filmmaker, and archivist based between Marseille and Beirut. Her work focuses on the history of violence and the power of images in the age of necropolitics. Using a multidisciplinary approach she explores concepts of the sacred and the sublime and their potential of horror. She graduated from UniversitéParis 8 with a Masters in Arts & Creation – Filmmaking (2013) and was assistant to the filmmaker Jocelyne Saab for several years. Her debut documentary film Aïnata (2018), shot in the south of Lebanon, is a seminal work embodying her interest in archives. It has been screened internationally at Panorama des Cinémas du Maghreb et du Moyen Orient, Saint-Denis; Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones, Barcelona; Visions du Réel – Industry, Nyon; Ecrans du Réel, Beirut; and online through Ashkal Alwan’s streaming platform, aashra. She is currently head of visual research for Bidayat, an intellectual and cultural quarterly magazine published in Beirut. She was shortlisted for the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award 2020.

Image credits: Courtesy of the artist