1. Orwa Nyrabia is an independent documentary film festival artistic director, producer, filmmaker, trainer, human rights defender and, together with his partner, filmmaker Diana El Jeiroudi, co-founder of DOX BOX International Documentary Film Festival in Syria.
Nyrabia is a resident of Berlin, Germany, since the end of 2013 In 2018, Nyrabia became the artistic director of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, and in November 2024 he announced he would be stepping down in July 2025.
Orwa Nyrabia grew up in the city of Homs, Syria, in a family of political dissidents.
Orwa Nyrabia's father, Mouaffaq Nyrabia, is a prominent leftist opposition figure, and a political prisoner in the 1980, and his mother, Amal Mohammad, a political activist and the sister of renowned Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammad.
In 1999 Orwa Nyrabia graduated with a degree in acting from the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts in Damascus, Syria.
From 1997 to 2002, Orwa Nyrabia wrote regularly for Lebanese daily As-Safir.
Orwa Nyrabia worked on several feature films as a first assistant director.
In 2013, while residing in Egypt, Orwa Nyrabia produced the documentary film Return to Homs, by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki, and the film became the very first film from the Arab World to open the prestigious IDFA, in November 2013.
Orwa Nyrabia continued to produce El Jeiroudi's films, to great critical acclaim, most notably her 2021 film "Republic of Silence", which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and went to win multiple awards, including at DokLeipzig.
Orwa Nyrabia worked as a documentary film tutor at various prestigious workshops, such as the IDFA Academy and the Encounters documentary workshop in Cape Town, South Africa.
Orwa Nyrabia is part of various non-profit boards, including the International Documentary Association, DOX BOX Association, The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors, in addition to being the president of The Festival Academy, a Brussels-based non-profit training and connecting young festival managers around the globe, and the chair of the board of the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk.
In 2018, Orwa Nyrabia became the Artistic Director of the prominent IDFA, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
Orwa Nyrabia restructured the festival's programs to become more international and inclusive, in terms of gender, cultural and geographical backgrounds, and in terms of artistic sensibility, IDFA represented a wider spectrum of documentary film and art forms and genres.
In November 2024, Orwa Nyrabia announced that he will be stepping down at the end of his contract by Summer of 2025.
Orwa Nyrabia has been one of the unnamed people behind Syria's most famous grassroots revolutionary organization, Local Coordination Committees in Syria, working on activists' support and humanitarian aid to displaced citizens.
Since Razan Zaitouneh was abducted late 2013 in Douma, near Damascus, by an unknown group of extremists, Orwa Nyrabia became the temporary acting director of the organization she founded and directed, Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria.
Orwa Nyrabia was reportedly arrested at Damascus International Airport by Syrian authorities on 23 August 2012.
Orwa Nyrabia's family lost contact with him shortly before he was supposed to board an EgyptAir flight to Cairo.
The airline company confirmed that Orwa Nyrabia did not board their flight.
Later on, Orwa Nyrabia announced on his personal Facebook page that the Syrian Military Intelligence was responsible for his detention.
Orwa Nyrabia was released following an international filmmakers' campaign for his freedom, in which thousands of film professionals from around the world demanded his freedom in the media.