Issa Touma is a photographer and curator based in Aleppo (Syria). His photographic work can be found in international collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Finding himself isolated from the international art community in his own country, Touma established the Black and White Gallery, the first photography gallery in the Middle East, in 1992. After its closure in 1996, Touma founded Le Pont, an independent art organisation and gallery that promotes freedom of expression and stimulates the local art scene through international events.

In 1997, he started the International Photography Festival Aleppo, which despite the horrors and uncertainties of the conflict, continues to take place every year. In 2012, shortly after the war broke out, he initiated Art Camping. This event in the form of workshops counters violence with artistic interventions. Its aim is to bring young people from various religious and ethnic backgrounds together, encouraging them to express themselves through culture.

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In 2012, Floor graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy. After graduation she worked on video art related projects and developed the short documentary Bekerrapers (The Cup Collectors) with production company KeyDocs.

In 2014 she made her international debut as a documentary filmmaker with Paradijsbestormers (Storming Paradise) in collaboration with production company KeyDocs and BNN. In 2015, together with Syrian artist Issa Touma and Dutch co-director Thomas Vroege, she made the international acclaimed short documentary 9 Days - From My Window In Aleppo. This short documentary was shown on film festivals around the world and won the European Film Award for best short 2016.

In 2016 she also made here debut as a fiction director with In Vrijheid (In Exile) which was nominated for a the Dutch Golden Calfs Best Television Drama and won Best Actress. Together again with Issa Touma and Thomas Vroege, she made a follow-up story on life in Aleppo: Greetings from Aleppo.

Today Floor works on the feature length documentary Last Male Standing and is developing her first fiction feature.

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Thomas Vroege (b. 1988, Rotterdam) is a filmmaker based in Amsterdam. Vroege graduated in audiovisual design at AKV | St. Joost in Breda with the short documentary The Son and The Stranger. This film won a WILDCARD of Dutch Film Fund and was broadcast by VPRO. His experimental debut film debut So Help Me God, a visual journey through the world of finance, was screened in the Goudenkalf- and Debut Competition at the Dutch Film Festival.

His most recent film 9 Days - From My Window In Aleppo, about the start of the Syrian uprising in the city of Aleppo, was screened at leading international festivals such as DOK Leipzig, Clermont-Ferrand and IFFR. His film plan Theater Of The Crowd was awarded with the IDFA Media Fund Documentary prize in 2015.

As an editor, Vroege worked a.o. with photographer Ad Nuis on Oil & Paradise, a multimedia installation as a road trip in which Nuis ironically examines the newly acquired wealth of the former Soviet state Azerbaijan. It was shown on Photo Festival Naarden, Dutch Photo Museum and the International Photography Biennial Beijing. His style as editor is characterized by a strong team player and ability to create.

Besides, in collaboration with Mark Jan van Tellingen, Vroege develops PARANOIA.WATCH, an index / smart watch app that attempts to measure the impact of terrorism on society. Since 2012 Vroege is an advisor to the Dutch Cultural Media Fund. In 2013 he was advisor to the documentary committee for the Dutch Film Festival.

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