Wissam Charaf

Wissam Charaf is a Lebanese-French director and journalist living in Paris. He’s also a video editor and photographer. After working for three years at a pirate radio station in Beirut during the Lebanese war, he took up video editing at various Lebanese TV networks. In 1998 he moved to Paris where he started working with the French-German network ARTE as a cameraman, editor, and journalist. Since then, he has covered major areas of conflict, from Lebanon to Darfur, Afghanistan, and North Korea. During this period, he also worked as an assistant director on music videos for artists such as Sinead O'Connor, Asian Dub Foundation, and Noir Desir, as well as on feature films and documentaries. In 2004, he directed his first short film “Hizz Ya Wizz” about a young man's boredom in a modern city. In 2006, while reporting on the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, he made his second short film “A Hero Never Dies” about a young artist's endless waiting during the time of war. In 2007, he made “An Army of Ants”, his third short film in which he follows a group of three young men in search of a Kalashnikov in a menacing pre-war atmosphere. This film was screened at the Locarno Festival and won the Jury Prize at the Lunel Festival in France.