Jihan El-Tahri is one of the most recognisable and visible filmmakers on the African continent. Born in Lebanon, as an adult she worked internationally as a news correspondent. In the early 1990s she turned to producing and writing documentaries. She is well known for her politically charged documentaries and her uncompromising approach to her political, visual and creative vision. Her award-winning documentaries include: House of Saud (2004), Cuba: An African Odyssey (2007) and Behind the Rainbow (2009).

The kind of documentaries that El-Tahri has focused on makes her a filmmaker to be reckoned with not just in terms of her subject matter but also for her relentless approach in dealing with complex political and ideological issues. In House of Saud she focused on the history of Saudi Arabia and its complex military and economic co-dependency with America. In Cuba: An African Odyssey, her subject matter was the important historical and political connection between African liberation movements and their ideological and military support from Cuba. Her sourcing of rare archival footage, coupled with candid interviews, provides the audience with an in-depth and layered understanding of the political significance of these alliances.

Continuing with her exploration of liberation movements, Behind the Rainbow is a fascinating account of an exiled liberation movement, the African National Congress, which came to power in 1994 in South Africa. The film charts the compromises and shifts in power and lays bare the influence of South Africa's political transition on the continent. It is clear from the film that the interviews secured for this documentary were neither easy to facilitate nor without specified preconditions, but once again the conversations are charged and insightfully refreshing. El- Tahri has often said on public platforms that her choice of subject matter seems to create an ‘absence of women’ but her own voice-over as the filmmaker narrating her documentaries not only marks her subjectivity but produces a poignancy in affirming the place of women in the ‘histories that men write’.

Even when she reflects on her experiences as a filmmaker El-Tahri often recounts film projects from which she chose to walk away.