Afef Ben Mahmoud, Khalil Benkirane
Afef Ben Mahmoud is a Tunisian actress and director with an educational background in business administration. She made her debut as a ballet dancer and then began acting in theatre, television and cinema. She has contributed to up to eleven films but is known for My Neighbor Hamouda (2004) and Hunting Gazelles (2008). She has also starred under major Tunisian directors, including Nouri Bouzid's Making Of (2006) and more recently in Streams (2021) by Mehdi Hmili, receiving the Best Actress award at the Cairo IFF. Alongside, she created Mésanges Films and produced Bouzid's latest film, The Scarecrows (2019), in which she also plays a leading role. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
After film studies,Khalil Benkirane directed the San Francisco Arab Film Festival and then returned to Morocco to direct his feature documentary The White Thread. He later joined the Doha Film Institute to oversee the Grant program, alongside which he co-produced The Scarecrows by Nouri Bouzids.