Najiba Noori (author, director) was born in 1995 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She began working for media organisations as a volunteer when she was just 15. She has participated in several workshops for photography and filmmaking in Kabul, Afghanistan. She has made reports and photo stories for various organisations and agencies, including the AFP, Huffington Post, MSF, FMIC, NRC and UN Women in Afghanistan. She participated in the Close-Up program 2020-2021 and at IDFA Academy 2022. She joined AFP as a video journalist in 2019. In 2021 she was obliged to leave her country when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan and she now lives in France. Writing Hawa (2024) is her first feature-length documentary.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
