Qatar Stars (Film Screening & Workshop)

In this workshop, co-organised with the Department of Gender Studies at LSE, and supported by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Director Danielle Beverly and Producer Jawaher AlMoawda will screen a work-in-progress “sneak preview” of Qatar Stars to gather insight from LSE academics and students at a crucial stage in the editing of the feature documentary. Discussion and informal audience feedback will inform the completed film, which will be released in 2023. 

‘Qatar Stars’ is a longitudinal observational documentary that follows The Olympic Stars, a rhythmic gymnastics school and team, as they aspire to represent Qatar on the world stage at the 2020 Children’s Asian Games. The narrative arc of the documentary will be a 3-act structure, following the schools’ most promising gymnasts as they train, enter their teenage years, and experience the joys and complications of girlhood in a rapidly shifting, and sometimes contradictory, contemporary Middle East.

This workshop is for LSE staff and students only. 

Danielle Beverly (Director) works as a one person crew, to craft observational documentaries. Beverly is committed to creating conversation and engagement around her films. Her latest is Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition (2019), about a Chicago used vinyl buyer. She is currently completing the longitudinal documentary Qatar Stars, about a girls’ rhythmic gymnastics school in Doha. Her award-winning documentaries have received national and international broadcasts: Old South (Al Jazeera, PBS/World Channel), Learning to Swallow (America ReFramed/World Channel), and Lonnie Holley: The Truth of the Dirt (Co-Producer/Cinematographer, AfroPop/World Channel) Beverly teaches documentary-making and theory as an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, and at Northwestern University where she is core faculty in the MFA in Documentary Media program.

Jawaher AlMoawda (Producer) is a Bahraini-Qatari producer in Doha. She holds a B.S. from Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) with a focus on filmmaking. AlMoawda has developed creative, logistical, and technical production expertise from working at Qatar Foundation, and on 14+ film sets with the Doha Film Institute, Film House, and Studio 20Q. She now teaches camera, sound, and editing equipment as a Production Specialist at NU-Q. In addition to Qatar Stars, AlMoawda is currently producing a Doha Film Institute-supported short fiction film with director Maha Al Jefairi, shedding light on cultural pressures a Muslim girl faces during her formative teenage years.

Nazanin Shahrokni is Assistant Professor of Gender and Globalisation and Director of MSc Programme in Gender and Gender Research at the London School of Economics. She is the author of the award-winning book, Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press 2020) which offers a gripping inquiry into gender segregation policies and women’s rights in contemporary Iran. Nazanin serves on the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association and is on the advisory board of Middle East Law and Governance, as well, the Global Dialogue.

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