Jessica Kelly

Jess Kelly is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker based between Cairo and London.  She has dedicated much of her career to making investigative documentaries in the Middle East. In 2021 she was nominated for a BAFTA for her films, “Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market” (BBC, 2019) and “The Schools That Chain Boys” (BBC, 2020). The later tells the story of systemic child abuse in Sudan's Islamic Schools through the eyes of a former pupil. It won an RTS award, an Amnesty award and was nominated for a Grierson Award.  Her latest documentary, "Under Poisoned Skies" (2022, BBC)  is an incendiary on-the-ground investigation into modern ‘sacrifice zones’ in southern Iraq, where oil companies' profits are prioritized over human life. In 2018, she directed "Palestine Underground" which follows a crew of techno and hiphop producers in the Occupied Territories and sheds light on the restraints Palestinian artists face as a result of Israel's Closure Policy.