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Bio

Stephano identifies as a filmmaker who does everything except make films. He founded and runs Paper Planes and the Crossings Collective. Paper Planes makes kick-ass websites and apps for mission-driven people and places, and experiments with alternative digital infrastructure. Crossings wields the power of collective art and knowledge - making and spreading, to re-expand our political imaginary. He learned almost everything he knows today at AFLAMUNA, the mavericks of Arab indie film, where he was Director of Development for the better part of a decade.

Before starting Paper Planes, I was about to complete a decade in cultural organising. As the Director of Development at AFLAMUNA, I oversaw strategy, fundraising and program design for the institution that was building the field of impact production in the SWANA region. Through this role, I was fortunate enough to initiate projects such as the nonprofit streaming platform AFLAMUNA.online, the MASAHAT Arab Community Distribution Network, and the SulSulCinema: The Global (South) Community Distribution Project. Today, I am launching a new endeavour, Paper Planes: a creative tech studio for mission-driven people and places. We want to be both proactive and critical, proficient and ethical, inquiring and critical, in harnessing the best that new digital technologies have to offer to elevate our collective struggles for liberation - and dive together into the existential questions that this new digital era is forcing upon us. I cannot wait to collaborate with filmmakers, impact producers, and orgs from all over to push the envelope on how we can reappropriate the internet in new and emancipatory ways. (All very convoluted ways to say, we can make websites and apps and a whole bunch of other stuff for your campaign, in the least evil way possible.)