Film and Multimedia
Hany has worked on numerous projects focusing on Syrian voices in the aftermath of the Syrian conflict. Tracking stories throughout the Middle East, he interprets, edits, and story produces a variety of media about what it means to leave one’s home and find a new one elsewhere.
Select Arabic language projects:
Lions of Mesopotamia: a feature-length documentary that tells the story of the Iraqi national soccer team’s journey to claim victory in the Asia Cup in 2007 during the bloodiest days of their country’s civil war. Facing violence and division, the team achieves the unimaginable: uniting their country during its darkest days. Premiered at SXSW 2024. Assistant Editor.
Sirens: a feature-length documentary that follows Lilas and Shery, co-founders and guitarists of the Middle East’s first all-female metal band, as they wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars. Premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2022. Lead project translator.
Walls Cannot Keep Us from Flying: a documentary short on skateboarding in Palestine featuring two Palestinian youth who seek freedom through skateboarding while growing up under occupation in the West Bank. Premiered at DOC NYC 2021. Arabic language editor and translator.
Three Promises: A feature-length documentary that takes place during Palestine’s Second Intifada and provides an intimate look into a family’s experience watching their hometown become engulfed in conflict. The film shares a rare opportunity to look through the eyes of a parent trying to create a sense of normalcy for her children in the midst of war. Arabic language editor and translator.
A Syrian Woman: Human Stories from Jordan: a documentary short that focuses on a group of Syrian women living in Jordan where they share how they rebuilt their lives and found strength to hold alive a thread of hope for their children, many of whom have only known life as a 'refugee'. Arabic language editor and translator.
Baladna: a documentary short featuring a Palestinian sweet shop owner and Syrian sweets chef living in Bahrain. Arabic language editor.
The Guardian's Get Away From The Target: an Emmy-winning documentary short following a Doctors Without Borders team in their journey to save overcrowded immigrant boats crossing the Mediterranean. Finishing Translator.
Mother Jones' Behind The Lines: an in-depth report and multimedia project on the American involvement in Syria in 2019. Short films explore an abandoned ISIS prison and burying the forgotten dead. Arabic editor and translator.
National Geographic's Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS: two brothers, accompanied by their families, self-document their journey as they escape ISIS-controlled Syria into Turkey in a desperate effort to seek a better life in Europe. Translator.
This American Life's Wartime Radio: a story of a community radio station in northwestern Syria that local listeners depend on and local militant factions work to shut down. Fact checker and translator.
MAPS Images' Moving On: a group of photo stories that document the current lives of six individuals who identify as migrants in Europe. Translator.
Photography and Curation
Lifetime's Her America: produced 30 photo essays exploring what it means to be a woman in the U.S the year after Trump’s election. The essays accompanied films, a photography zine, and social campaign for Lifetime’s channel. Lead photography technician.
Before relocating to New York City he worked at the McDougall Center for Photojournalism Studies, a research center at the University of Missouri, where he developed over a dozen shows of world-class photojournalism and documentary photography from concept to installation. He also produced video installations like Pruitt: The Possum Town Picture Man.
Prior to moving to the United States, Hany worked as a documentary photographer focusing on Syria's cultural heritage, performance arts, and the music scene in the mid 2000s. In 2010, he co-authored Syrian Silk: Portrait of a Living Cultural Heritage, a book on silk-making in Syria in the late 2000s.