Biography
Diana El Jeiroudi was born in Syria in 1977. She studied arts and humanities at the University of Damascus, Syria, from 1996 to 2000, and after graduation worked in marketing and communications for international agencies. In 2002, she and her partner Orwa Nyrabia founded ProAction Film, an independent film production company in Damascus. She also trained in film production and distribution at the Institut national de l'audiovisuel of the Sorbonne in Paris.
Diana El Jeiroudi's first experimental documentary short film "Pot" (2005) was shown at numerous international festivals. This was followed by the political short documentaries "Dolls, A Woman from Damascus" (2008) and "Morning Fears, Night Chants" (2012), which she directed with Syrian photographer and activist Guevara Namer.
Together with Orwa Nyrabia, El Jeiroudi also founded the highly successful Dox Box International Documentary Film Festival in Syria in 2008, which soon became the most important documentary film festival in the Arab world. In 2012, however, it was suspended in protest against state repression and the killing of civilians. In addition to directing her own films, El Jeiroudi also produced documentaries by other directors, including the award-winning "Homs – Ein zerstörter Traum" ("Homs - A Destroyed Dream", EG/DE 2013).
In 2014 Diane El Jeiroudi and Orwa Nyrabia left their home country and went to Berlin. There they founded Dox Box e.V., a non-profit association to support, promote and train a new generation of documentary filmmakers in the Arab world; El Jeiroudi served as the association's chairperson until the end of 2018. In 2017, she became the first Syrian to be invited to join the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is also a member of the German Film Academy. Her films have been shown at art events and museums, including Kunsthalle Wien, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and the Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan. As executive producer, she was involved in Gianfranco Rosi's multi-award winning documentary "Notturno" (IT/FR/DE 2020)
In 2017, El Jeiroudi began work on the three-hour documentary "Republic of Silence," in which she addressed experiences of civil war and flight and life in exile in a very personal and formally experimental way. The film premiered at the 2021 Venice Festival. At DOK Leipzig 2021, it received an Honorable Mention and won the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Award. The theatrical release was in summer 2022.