Philadelphia native Nehad Khader is a film programmer, editor, and writer whose work in film informs her work as a historian and vice versa. Trained in media and literature by Black and Palestinian creators, Nehad is moved by art that carries aesthetic excellence as well as social and political significance. In 2009, just before attending grad school at Georgetown University, Nehad curated her first exhibit at the Philadelphia Folklore Project showcasing the works and oral histories of Palestinian women in Philadelphia. While at Georgetown, she enjoyed worked on the Palestine Poster Project Archive, as a curator, translator, and poster collector. She went on to serve as Managing Editor of the academic peer-reviewed Journal of Palestine Studies in Washington, DC. During her time there, she took her first professional plunge into cinema as the founding curator of the DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival, founded by three fierce women in 2011. Nehad started as a BlackStar volunteer from 2012-2014, and began programming the festival with Maori Karmael Holmes in 2015. She is a 2017 Leeway Transformation Award winner, a 2018 Tribeca Film Institute fellow, and a 2019 Logan Nonfiction Fellow. She also produced the short documentary White Fright, directed by David Felix Sutcliffe, now streaming on The Guardian. A polyglot, Nehad speaks four languages and is excitedly learning a fifth language — ASL. When she’s not watching films, Nehad loves tending her gardens, partaking in clownery with friends, and reading good fiction.