The Producers

Reem Saleh - Director

Born in 1979, Reem graduated from the Lebanese American University in Beirut with a BA in radio, TV, film and psychology. She began her career as a theatre and film actor, went on to direct a short film and a play and has worked on a number of TV documentaries. In 2006 she moved to Qatar to work as a producer and voice artist for the Al Jazeera Children’s Channel. She has since long been immersed in the media industry in the Middle East. She worked with Murr Television (MTV), Rotana Tarab, Rotana Khlaeejia, and the Doha film institute.

Making The Film

The story behind What Comes Around

Reem comes from a mixed background with a Lebanese father and Egyptian mother. She was not particularly close to her Egyptian roots, that is until her mother passed away in 2009 and she went back for the burial. At that point Reem wanted to reconnect with her Egyptian heritage and get to know the neighbourhood that her mother had grown up in. It is then that she discovered ‘The Committee’, an internal banking system in poor neighbourhoods, where members are chosen and each pay a monthly amount over a period of 10 months into a pool. Each month one of the participants collects the whole amount for a particular needs like weddings, medications and education.