Mohamed Ghazala

Mohamed Ghazala, Animation director, and Educator is an associate professor of animation and the chair of the Cinematic Arts School of Effat University/ Saudi Arabia. Besides being the Vice President of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA, and the founder of its first chapter in Africa and the Arab world.

He served on several international Film & Animations festivals juries, including Stuttgart (Germany), Castelli Animati(Italy), SICAF (Korea), Animanima(Serbia), AnimaAfrik(Ghana), ReAnimania (Armenia), Animae Caribe (Trinidad & Tobago), AnimaBasauri (Spain), CICDAF (China) Chilemonos (Chile), Zanzibar Film Festival.

He has also been working as a visiting lecturer at several fine arts & film institutes such as Jilin animation institute (China), Cologne's Academy of Media Arts (KHM- Germany), NAFTI (Ghana), Durban Art & Animation center (South Africa), Antioquia University (Colombia).

Ghazala directed and co-directed many awarded films, such as "Carnival" (2001), "Crazy Works" (2002), "HM HM" (2005), "Sayari Yetu" (2006), including first Yemen's animated film "Salma" in 2006. "Honyan's Shoe" (2009), which won the Animation Prize at The African Movie Academy Awards (The African Oscar AMAA) in Lagos/Nigeria 2010.

He gave several workshops on animation in different countries and acted as a film consultant for several international festivals. In 2011, he published his first book "Animation in the Arab World" (Lambert AP. Germany). His second book, with the title "Animation in Africa," which published in Egypt in 2013.

Ghazala mainly concentrates on making independent experimental animated films on his own or in workshops (e.g., Greece, Tunisia, Capo Verde) or art residencies (e.g., UNESCO-ASCHBERG's to Colombia, UNESCO's Africa Animated to Kenya).