Visionary documentary filmmaker, TED Prize Winner and Pangea Day founder Jehane Noujaim began her career as a photographer and filmmaker. Born in Cairo and being of American, Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian descent, she graduated magna cum laude in Visual Arts and Philosophy at Harvard in 1996. Since then, she has become most known for her raw cinematography and challenging depictions of world affairs in features such as Mokattam, Startup.com, and the well-received Control Room, the documentary focusing on US Central Command and its relations with Al-Jazeera and other news organizations covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003. After winning the TED Prize in 2006, Noujaim expressed her wish to organize ‘Pangea Day‘, a live videoconference that will take place in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali. The show will take place over 4-hour period broadcasting though the internet, television, digital cinemas and mobile phones. It will feature films, speakers and music on May 10, 2008, and today there are 158 days left until the big event. It is hoped by Noujaim and fellow organizers that Pangea Cinema Day ‘will facilitate community-building activities around the world by connecting inspired viewers with numerous organizations which are already doing groundbreaking work.’
Watch and listen as she speaks to an audience of ‘the world’s leading thinkers and doers’ at the 2006 annual TED Conference, unveiling her inspiring wish: to change the world through the power of film.
Sarah Badr © MMVII
See also: Pangea Day
sarah badr | pieces at random 
Thanks to all, who make Pangea Day become reality! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4FxOYOg1EM