Mayye Zayed
An Egyptian independent filmmaker and the founder of Cléo Media for female driven content production and impact distribution in Alexandria. She's a film director, producer, editor and cinematographer whose work was screened in various venues and film festivals across the world including TIFF, Berlinale, Dok Leipzig, DOC NYC, AFI Fest, Cinemed, etc. After studying Telecommunications & Electronics Engineering in Alexandria University, Mayye studied filmmaking in the Jesuits Film workshop in 2009/2010. Then she received the Fulbright scholarship and studied cinema and media studies in Wellesley College and Innovations in Documentary in MIT in 2011/2012 in the US. She is the recipient of the Getty Images ARRAY grant in 2017 and Film Independent's Global Media Makers Fellowship in 2017 and 2019. She’s also an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Mediterranean Film Institute, Documentary Campus Masterschool, DOX BOX, Good Pitch and the American Film Showcase documentary program in USC School of Cinematic Arts. In 2013, Mayye co-directed and co-produced the collaborative feature The Mice Room (Dubai FF 2013, Sao Paulo FF 2014) with 5 other filmmakers. In 2016 she made the award winning short A Stroll Down Sunflower Lane (Berlinale 2016, AFI Fest 2016, Best Experimental Film in Sharjah Film Platform 2019). In 2020, she directed and produced her debut feature documentary Lift Like a Girl (TIFF 2020, Dok Leipzig 2020, DOC NYC 2020).
