Shooting the Messenger
Shooting the Messenger
Jehane Noujaim
Jehane Noujaim
Beginning in April 2024, two journalists turn their cameras on themselves and their friends: a Civil Defense responder and an aid worker. Unlike social media’s fleeting clips, the film captures a continuum — resilience and fatigue, the everyday and the catastrophic intertwined. At the heart of the story are the journalists behind the camera, the aid worker, and the Civil Defense responder. Through the journalists’ lens, we see the complexity of documenting joy amid grief — weddings, orphan pizza parties, ceasefire celebrations. The aid worker and her sisters embody the sustaining force of family, while the Civil Defense responder stands as a quiet hero amid destruction. Threaded through the film is the poetic narrator, whose words bridge the personal and the collective struggle. It stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit when death is at the door each day.
Documentary Film, Film/Moving Image
2026
About Jehane Noujaim
New York, NY
Jehane Noujaim is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker renowned for her impactful storytelling and incisive documentaries. As the producer and director of HBO’s acclaimed series The Vow (2020 and 2022), she delves into the complex world of the self-improvement group NXIVM. Noujaim also co-directed The Great Hack (2019), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and made both the Academy Award and Grierson shortlists. The film garnered BAFTA and Emmy nominations and won a Cinema Eye Honors Award. She was the first woman and youngest person to win a TED Prize for her innovative contributions to filmmaking and social impact. Her distinguished body of work includes Rafea: Solar Mama (2013), Control Room (2004), and Startup.com (2001), as well as the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated, The Square (2013), making history as the first Arab woman to receive an Oscar nomination. Currently, Noujaim is directing a docuseries on Burning Man, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the social experiment in American culture. She’s also undertaking a project on the Israel-Palestine conflict, collaborating closely with journalists in Gaza to illuminate the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the realities faced by its people.
Jehane Noujaim is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker renowned for her impactful storytelling and incisive documentaries. As the producer and director of HBO’s acclaimed series The Vow (2020 and 2022), she delves into the complex world of the self-improvement group NXIVM. Noujaim also co-directed The Great Hack (2019), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and made both the Academy Award and Grierson shortlists. The film garnered BAFTA and Emmy nominations and won a Cinema Eye Honors Award. She was the first woman and youngest person to win a TED Prize for her innovative contributions to filmmaking and social impact. Her distinguished body of work includes Rafea: Solar Mama (2013), Control Room (2004), and Startup.com (2001), as well as the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated, The Square (2013), making history as the first Arab woman to receive an Oscar nomination. Currently, Noujaim is directing a docuseries on Burning Man, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the social experiment in American culture. She’s also undertaking a project on the Israel-Palestine conflict, collaborating closely with journalists in Gaza to illuminate the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the realities faced by its people.