Sarah Emery is an independent filmmaker and community artist. Sarah was previously the Associate Director at Milk Crate Theatre and the Outreach Director at Shopfront Youth Arts. Her collaborative work with these companies has been exhibited at Darling Harbour, Sydney Opera House, Hazlehurst Gallery, CarriageWorks, Luna Park and Darlinghurst Theatre Company.

In 2013, Sarah was awarded the Australia Council’s Kirk Robson Award for her leadership in Community Arts and in 2015, she won the UTS Golden Eye Award for Innovation in Sound and Image. Her documentary ‘Invisibility’ won best micro short at the Seattle Social Justice Film Festival in 2016. Sarah is a trained secondary teacher and has a Masters in Media Arts and Production (UTS) as well as a Graduate Certificate in Screenwriting from AFTRS.

Claudia Chidiac is a theatre maker, cultural worker and creative producer. For fifteen yeas she has worked with diverse communities creating intimate and large scale experiences. From 2010 – 2014 she was the Creative Producer of Performance and Music and Theatre Producer/Curator at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (CPAC) She was responsible for creating and producing the award winning Way Out West (WOW) Festival for Children.

In 2013 she produced and directed Tough Beauty by Finegan Kruckemeyer, for CPAC. From 2005 – 2010 she was the Artistic Director and EO of Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT), Western Sydney’s leading youth theatre company, where she was responsible for directing, and producing the company’s artistic program and developing training opportunities for emerging artists in Western Sydney. 2006, she was awarded the Australia Council for the Arts Community Cultural Development Young Leaders Award; In 2004 the Arts NSW Western Sydney Artist Fellowship.

Khaled has been with CuriousWorks since he was 13 years old, participating in Refill in 2008 while a student at Miller Technology High School. He began the project being described as “at risk” by his teachers, found a new purpose through his involvement, went on to become school captain and is now studying Law and Arts at Western Sydney University.

He has worked in front of the camera, as well as behind it, on numerous CuriousWorks projects – most notably exploring his Lebanese background in the Meet+Eat documentary Khaled vs Khaled.

He is a young cultural leader within Miller and its refugee community and is set to play a key role in our Beyond Refuge project.

Ali Mousawi is a filmmaker and photojournalist living in Sydney, Australia, originally from Ahwaz, Iran. Ali was the first assistant director for the feature Revawathaye Natamam, cinematographer for the feature Qalamranj both shot in Iran.

He made three documentaries in Ahwaz and three films in Australia, including Man in the Mirror which premiered at the Arab Film Festival Australia, Scourge in Darkness which was nominated for the Best Film Award in International New Delhi Film Festival and Uncontainable Love which has been screened at the opening night of Tropfest festival 2018.

Ali has recently been engaged as a cinematographer and DOP on projects for ABC’s short film Queen Briany, Uncontainable Love, Museum of Contemporary of Art, Art Gallery of NSW, Camden City Council and Australian Arab Film Festival.

He has over 14 years experience in Ahwaz, Iran working for a variety of news agencies, including as Main Photographer for Fars News Agency (Ahwaz/Tehran) from  2011 to 2013, Group Manager and Photographer for Ahwaz News Agency and Editor in Chief, Photographer at Bejwak Newspaper (Ahwaz) in 2012 and official photographer for Parramatta City Council (Sydney). Ali won first prize in Photography at the City and Media Festival, Ahwaz, 2010, and first prize in the Festival of Journalism in Bandar Abbas (Southern Iran) every year from 2008-2011.

Howard Matthew is a collaborative artist with over 20 years experience working in the creative industries. As artist, filmmaker, project manager, researcher and educator he has worked in a broad range contexts from early years education to facilitating creative play with industry executives.

He has extensive experience working in community, education and outreach, including working with many high profile cultural institutions such as Sydney Opera House, Tate Modern and National Portrait Gallery, London. As a practising artist his work has been supported and endorsed through numerous fellowships and bursaries in addition to being purchased for private collections. Matthew has also contributed to a number of publications as artist, educator and researcher.

Curtis is the lead West Australian artist in The Stories Project, and directed the short film Mamu, which has been broadcast nationally on SBS and NITV and shown at a Canadian film festival. Curtis hails from Parnngurr Community, located 400 km east of Newman in north Western Australia.

Curtis is an actor, emerging film writer/director and a young Martu leader. He is an undergrad at Murdoch University, completing a Bachelor of Culture, Communications and Media.

After finishing school in 2008, Curtis worked as Community Coordinator and Youth Development Officer at Martu Media (a division of Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa), where he also worked on Yiwarra Kuju as a filmmaker and youth ambassador. Curtis was the recipient of 2011 Western Australian Youth Art Award and Westfarmers Youth Scholarship.

Hayder arrived in Australia in late 2012 as a refugee from Iraq, where he had been an art teacher after graduating in Fine Arts from the University of Baghdad.

He fled when it became unsafe for him to remain in his home country. His two-month journey to the safety of Australia came via detention centres in Christmas Island and Darwin. He used his time constructively in the centres, holding an exhibition of his paintings and drawings in the first, and teaching art in the second.

Hayder was granted a temporary asylum seeker visa and settled in Western Sydney where he joined the filmmaking and photography workshops that CuriousWorks works ran for refugees in partnership with Settlement Services International in 2014 and 2015.

Photography had been a hobby for him for 10 years, and the workshops renewed a passion that he is pursuing as one of the artists in our Beyond Refuge project. Part of that sees him creating a series of ‘Cage’ photographs, reflecting life for refugees in detention centres.

As well as pursuing his artistic interests, he plans to seek work as a commercial photographer in Australia.

Ali Al Azeez is an Iraq born filmmaker with a ten year’s experience in creating short films. Back in Iraq, together with his film school peers, Ali formed a filmmaking outfit called TigerScope. The group made their first film called War Child in 2010. Since, Ali continues to work with his peers and other filmmakers to create at least one short film a year, including Old Children (2011), Spotlight (2012), Off Side (2013). In 2015, Ali won an award at the Baghdad International Film Festival for Link, which was set in Iraq during the war and terrorism crisis.

In November 2015, Ali moved to Australia as a refugee. Here, he was inspired to make a short documentary called Without Borders, which celebrated a multicultural Australia. His second short film in the country is called LifeJacket –  a fictional story based on real life experiences of people who arrive in Australia by boat and find themselves stuck in a limbo due to personal traumas and cultural differences.

Ali is currently working on a feature film idea about the war in Iraq.

Valerie Berry is an actor, performance maker and theatre educator. Throughout her practice, she has focused on collaborative and interdisciplinary processes.

She has worked with, National Theatre of Parramatta (Swallow, 2016. Dir: Kate Champion), Cake Industries (Sydney Festival 2016, Robotronica Festival 2015/2017, Fun4Kids Festival 2017), Polyglot Theatre (Paper Planet: Sydney and Norway), Blacktown Arts Centre, Theatre Kantanka, Urban Theatre Projects, Belvoir, Version 1.0, Branch Nebula, Performance Space, Sydney Theatre Company, Performing Lines (Tour Germany and Adelaide Festival, Ur/Faust; and National tour of The Folding Wife), Bell Shakespeare/Canute Productions (Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes), and Campbelltown Arts Centre.

She co- directed/facilitated Shopfront Theatre’s 2015 Junior Ensemble show, Chasing your Shadow (Shopfront 2015 and Way Out West Festival, 2016).

Valerie is one of the mentors and facilitator for CuriousWork’s Beyond Refuge program and a guest facilitator for Beyond the Square, Access Program, Riverside Theatres.

Recently, Valerie has worked with, ActNow Theatre (Facilitator and performer), Vitalstatistix (Border Crossers) Adhocracy 2017 and with Paul Gazzola(OSCA) for the SUE Project.

Valerie has had an on going collaborative partnership with multimedia artists, Anino Shadowplay Collective (Manila) and Paschal Daantos Berry, since 2005: The Folding Wife; Within and Without; Arkipelago (Jakarta, Indonesia); Arkipelago2: Intima-sea (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), and This here.Land, for Performance Space’s award winning, Liveworks Festival 2017 program.

Valerie’s film and television credits include, The Matrix Reloaded, The Great Raid, (award winning independent film) Supposed the Night Tasted Like Sugar, Rope Burns, Spirited, Big Sky and A Difficult Woman.

Valerie’s radio drama credits for ABC Radio National include, The Folding Wife, Conversations through the Wall, Ancestry of my eyes, Rita’s Lullaby, Season to Taste and Lotus War.

Sean joined us as a core member of the CuriousWorks Film Club in 2013, and became a Curious Creator a year later.

That gave him the opportunity to develop his filmmaking skills through key production roles on our first feature film, Riz, and our online documentary series Meet+Eat. He is now taking the next steps as an independent artist and cultural leader.

He has become a community development worker for Fairfield City Council, and is writing his first film, as part of our Beyond Refuge project, that captures the story of his parents’ fleeing Cambodia as refugees to Australia.

“I want to write stories from my community, in my own words. My parents told me what they wanted to tell about their journey from Cambodia and suddenly the way the story should be told fell into place. I am ready.”

Soheil was a professional photographer for more than 20 years in Iran, working across a broad range of commercial sectors including weddings, portraiture and architecture, until the government shut down his business as part of the country’s ongoing persecution of Bahá’í faith followers.

After his children were also denied access to education, he fled with his family to Turkey in 2013 where, after two years, the United Nations arranged visas that allowed them to settle in Australia as refugees.

Soheil first teamed up with CuriousWorks in 2015 when he took part in the filmmaking and photography workshops we ran for refugees in partnership with Settlement Services International.

That was the inspiration for him to join the artists in our Beyond Refuge project. As part of that, he created a series of photographs, for our Beyond Refuge: Citizens exhibition in 2016, which focused on faces depicting contrasting visions of joy and sadness.

Soheil is also focused on studying English, and planning to renew his photography career.

Sarah Emery is an independent filmmaker and community artist. Sarah was previously the Associate Director at Milk Crate Theatre and the Outreach Director at Shopfront Youth Arts. Her collaborative work with these companies has been exhibited at Darling Harbour, Sydney Opera House, Hazlehurst Gallery, CarriageWorks, Luna Park and Darlinghurst Theatre Company.

In 2013, Sarah was awarded the Australia Council’s Kirk Robson Award for her leadership in Community Arts and in 2015, she won the UTS Golden Eye Award for Innovation in Sound and Image. Her documentary ‘Invisibility’ won best micro short at the Seattle Social Justice Film Festival in 2016. Sarah is a trained secondary teacher and has a Masters in Media Arts and Production (UTS) as well as a Graduate Certificate in Screenwriting from AFTRS.

Howard Matthew is a collaborative artist with over 20 years experience working in the creative industries. As artist, filmmaker, project manager, researcher and educator he has worked in a broad range contexts from early years education to facilitating creative play with industry executives.

He has extensive experience working in community, education and outreach, including working with many high profile cultural institutions such as Sydney Opera House, Tate Modern and National Portrait Gallery, London. As a practising artist his work has been supported and endorsed through numerous fellowships and bursaries in addition to being purchased for private collections. Matthew has also contributed to a number of publications as artist, educator and researcher.

Valerie Berry is an actor, performance maker and theatre educator. Throughout her practice, she has focused on collaborative and interdisciplinary processes.

She has worked with, National Theatre of Parramatta (Swallow, 2016. Dir: Kate Champion), Cake Industries (Sydney Festival 2016, Robotronica Festival 2015/2017, Fun4Kids Festival 2017), Polyglot Theatre (Paper Planet: Sydney and Norway), Blacktown Arts Centre, Theatre Kantanka, Urban Theatre Projects, Belvoir, Version 1.0, Branch Nebula, Performance Space, Sydney Theatre Company, Performing Lines (Tour Germany and Adelaide Festival, Ur/Faust; and National tour of The Folding Wife), Bell Shakespeare/Canute Productions (Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes), and Campbelltown Arts Centre.

She co- directed/facilitated Shopfront Theatre’s 2015 Junior Ensemble show, Chasing your Shadow (Shopfront 2015 and Way Out West Festival, 2016).

Valerie is one of the mentors and facilitator for CuriousWork’s Beyond Refuge program and a guest facilitator for Beyond the Square, Access Program, Riverside Theatres.

Recently, Valerie has worked with, ActNow Theatre (Facilitator and performer), Vitalstatistix (Border Crossers) Adhocracy 2017 and with Paul Gazzola(OSCA) for the SUE Project.

Valerie has had an on going collaborative partnership with multimedia artists, Anino Shadowplay Collective (Manila) and Paschal Daantos Berry, since 2005: The Folding Wife; Within and Without; Arkipelago (Jakarta, Indonesia); Arkipelago2: Intima-sea (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), and This here.Land, for Performance Space’s award winning, Liveworks Festival 2017 program.

Valerie’s film and television credits include, The Matrix Reloaded, The Great Raid, (award winning independent film) Supposed the Night Tasted Like Sugar, Rope Burns, Spirited, Big Sky and A Difficult Woman.

Valerie’s radio drama credits for ABC Radio National include, The Folding Wife, Conversations through the Wall, Ancestry of my eyes, Rita’s Lullaby, Season to Taste and Lotus War.

Claudia Chidiac is a theatre maker, cultural worker and creative producer. For fifteen yeas she has worked with diverse communities creating intimate and large scale experiences. From 2010 – 2014 she was the Creative Producer of Performance and Music and Theatre Producer/Curator at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (CPAC) She was responsible for creating and producing the award winning Way Out West (WOW) Festival for Children.

In 2013 she produced and directed Tough Beauty by Finegan Kruckemeyer, for CPAC. From 2005 – 2010 she was the Artistic Director and EO of Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT), Western Sydney’s leading youth theatre company, where she was responsible for directing, and producing the company’s artistic program and developing training opportunities for emerging artists in Western Sydney. 2006, she was awarded the Australia Council for the Arts Community Cultural Development Young Leaders Award; In 2004 the Arts NSW Western Sydney Artist Fellowship.

Curtis is the lead West Australian artist in The Stories Project, and directed the short film Mamu, which has been broadcast nationally on SBS and NITV and shown at a Canadian film festival. Curtis hails from Parnngurr Community, located 400 km east of Newman in north Western Australia.

Curtis is an actor, emerging film writer/director and a young Martu leader. He is an undergrad at Murdoch University, completing a Bachelor of Culture, Communications and Media.

After finishing school in 2008, Curtis worked as Community Coordinator and Youth Development Officer at Martu Media (a division of Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa), where he also worked on Yiwarra Kuju as a filmmaker and youth ambassador. Curtis was the recipient of 2011 Western Australian Youth Art Award and Westfarmers Youth Scholarship.

Sean joined us as a core member of the CuriousWorks Film Club in 2013, and became a Curious Creator a year later.

That gave him the opportunity to develop his filmmaking skills through key production roles on our first feature film, Riz, and our online documentary series Meet+Eat. He is now taking the next steps as an independent artist and cultural leader.

He has become a community development worker for Fairfield City Council, and is writing his first film, as part of our Beyond Refuge project, that captures the story of his parents’ fleeing Cambodia as refugees to Australia.

“I want to write stories from my community, in my own words. My parents told me what they wanted to tell about their journey from Cambodia and suddenly the way the story should be told fell into place. I am ready.”

Hayder arrived in Australia in late 2012 as a refugee from Iraq, where he had been an art teacher after graduating in Fine Arts from the University of Baghdad.

He fled when it became unsafe for him to remain in his home country. His two-month journey to the safety of Australia came via detention centres in Christmas Island and Darwin. He used his time constructively in the centres, holding an exhibition of his paintings and drawings in the first, and teaching art in the second.

Hayder was granted a temporary asylum seeker visa and settled in Western Sydney where he joined the filmmaking and photography workshops that CuriousWorks works ran for refugees in partnership with Settlement Services International in 2014 and 2015.

Photography had been a hobby for him for 10 years, and the workshops renewed a passion that he is pursuing as one of the artists in our Beyond Refuge project. Part of that sees him creating a series of ‘Cage’ photographs, reflecting life for refugees in detention centres.

As well as pursuing his artistic interests, he plans to seek work as a commercial photographer in Australia.

Soheil was a professional photographer for more than 20 years in Iran, working across a broad range of commercial sectors including weddings, portraiture and architecture, until the government shut down his business as part of the country’s ongoing persecution of Bahá’í faith followers.

After his children were also denied access to education, he fled with his family to Turkey in 2013 where, after two years, the United Nations arranged visas that allowed them to settle in Australia as refugees.

Soheil first teamed up with CuriousWorks in 2015 when he took part in the filmmaking and photography workshops we ran for refugees in partnership with Settlement Services International.

That was the inspiration for him to join the artists in our Beyond Refuge project. As part of that, he created a series of photographs, for our Beyond Refuge: Citizens exhibition in 2016, which focused on faces depicting contrasting visions of joy and sadness.

Soheil is also focused on studying English, and planning to renew his photography career.

Khaled has been with CuriousWorks since he was 13 years old, participating in Refill in 2008 while a student at Miller Technology High School. He began the project being described as “at risk” by his teachers, found a new purpose through his involvement, went on to become school captain and is now studying Law and Arts at Western Sydney University.

He has worked in front of the camera, as well as behind it, on numerous CuriousWorks projects – most notably exploring his Lebanese background in the Meet+Eat documentary Khaled vs Khaled.

He is a young cultural leader within Miller and its refugee community and is set to play a key role in our Beyond Refuge project.

Ali Al Azeez is an Iraq born filmmaker with a ten year’s experience in creating short films. Back in Iraq, together with his film school peers, Ali formed a filmmaking outfit called TigerScope. The group made their first film called War Child in 2010. Since, Ali continues to work with his peers and other filmmakers to create at least one short film a year, including Old Children (2011), Spotlight (2012), Off Side (2013). In 2015, Ali won an award at the Baghdad International Film Festival for Link, which was set in Iraq during the war and terrorism crisis.

In November 2015, Ali moved to Australia as a refugee. Here, he was inspired to make a short documentary called Without Borders, which celebrated a multicultural Australia. His second short film in the country is called LifeJacket –  a fictional story based on real life experiences of people who arrive in Australia by boat and find themselves stuck in a limbo due to personal traumas and cultural differences.

Ali is currently working on a feature film idea about the war in Iraq.

Ali Mousawi is a filmmaker and photojournalist living in Sydney, Australia, originally from Ahwaz, Iran. Ali was the first assistant director for the feature Revawathaye Natamam, cinematographer for the feature Qalamranj both shot in Iran.

He made three documentaries in Ahwaz and three films in Australia, including Man in the Mirror which premiered at the Arab Film Festival Australia, Scourge in Darkness which was nominated for the Best Film Award in International New Delhi Film Festival and Uncontainable Love which has been screened at the opening night of Tropfest festival 2018.

Ali has recently been engaged as a cinematographer and DOP on projects for ABC’s short film Queen Briany, Uncontainable Love, Museum of Contemporary of Art, Art Gallery of NSW, Camden City Council and Australian Arab Film Festival.

He has over 14 years experience in Ahwaz, Iran working for a variety of news agencies, including as Main Photographer for Fars News Agency (Ahwaz/Tehran) from  2011 to 2013, Group Manager and Photographer for Ahwaz News Agency and Editor in Chief, Photographer at Bejwak Newspaper (Ahwaz) in 2012 and official photographer for Parramatta City Council (Sydney). Ali won first prize in Photography at the City and Media Festival, Ahwaz, 2010, and first prize in the Festival of Journalism in Bandar Abbas (Southern Iran) every year from 2008-2011.