Biography

Simon Safieh is an independent filmmaker, born in Tartous - Syria in 1988 His passion about cinema started early when he was 15 as he volunteered at Tartous Cinema Club and later became member of its board. In 2006 he moved to the capital to study at the faculty of political science in Damascus University, while he kept visiting Tartous and volunteered at the Drawing Club there. In 2010 he went to Beirut with the aim of getting educated on filmmaking therefore he participated in a number of "dogma" film workshops, then returned to Syria and worked as an assistant director with 5 Syrian directors. He started working on his first short film "Lesh" in 2012, and was followed by another short film "Not Just an Apple" and won the Jury prize for it. Later in 2013 he wrote and directed "Julia" that was based on a true story and won the Best Syrian Film in Steps International Festival, also the Best Film Award in the Youth Short Film Festival. He wrote and directed many documentaries for both local and international organizations that deals with Syrian reality during war. Simon's experience in filmmaking brings out questions about the human being in states of isolation and loneliness which spreads and reaches out to tell the story of a whole community. He founded with his partner "Al-Masna'" company which consists of 3 projects, "Poor Film" a pioneer Syrian project that works on creating and activating an environment to produce independent films in Syria, "Peace Lens" workshops that mobilized around Syria to train on peace building through filmmaking. He's last achievements was I Don't Like The Red Color, a featured film produced by National Film Organization and directed by four filmmakers whom Safieh was one of them.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: https://www.facebook.com/simon.safieh