Jordanian writer and director Darin J. Sallam holds an MFA in Cinematic Arts from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts (RSICA), affiliated with the University of Southern California (USC). To her credit are five award winning short films including STILL ALIVE (2010), THE DARK OUTSIDE (2012) and THE PARROT (2016), all of which received multiple awards and screened in internationally acclaimed film festivals worldwide. A Berlinale Talent 2021, Sallam is the recipient of the 2015 Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the 2017 Artist in Residency Fellowship at La Cité Internationale des Arts and the 2018 Global Media Makers Fellowship by Film Independent. She has been a jury member on several international film festivals and is also co-founder and managing partner at TaleBox, a Jordanian production and training company based in Amman. Her debut feature film, FARHA (2021), had its world premiere in the official selection of the 46th Toronto IFF and was selected at Busan IFF and the Rome FF.