Sofia Amara

Sofia Amara (born 25 May 1968) is a French-Moroccan journalist and film director.

Biography Amara was born in Casablanca in 1968. She graduated from the University of Jordan with a bachelor's degree in political science and from the IEP in Paris in 1996. Amara began her professional career as a correspondent in the Middle East for various channels and radio stations. She covered events such as the first Palestinian Intifada, the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, and the return of Yasser Arafat to Gaza.

Amara reported on the Arab Spring in Egypt, and was jailed twice alongside protestors in Cairo. She has produced documentaries on the Syrian Civil War since its outset in 2011. After Mosul was liberated in 2017, Amara became one of the first female journalists to enter the city with the Iraqi army.

In 2017, she directed the documentary The Lost Children of the Caliphate, which depicted children as young as eight becoming brainwashed and receiving weapons training. It received the AMADE Prize at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival.

Amara is based out of Beirut. In 2019, she criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for not having a Middle East policy and ignoring the abuses of the Arab governments. Amara stated that the most worrying conclusion of the Arab Spring was that "there are crisis managers who act on the basis of their own interests which often change and are sometimes poorly calculated."

Partial filmography 2011: Syrie, dans l'enfer de la répression (writer/director) 2011: Le grand journal de Canal+ (TV series) 2011-2013: Spécial investigation (TV series, director) 2012: Syrie, au cœur de l’armée libre (director) 2013: Le renégat (The renegade) (director) 2014: L'invité (TV series) 2017: Enquête exclusive (TV series, director) 2017: The Lost Children of the Caliphate (director) 2019: C à vous (TV series) 2019: Al-Baghdadi, les secrets d'une traque (director)