It's incredible to see the creativity, beauty and hardships people capture when filmmaking is opened up and shared with the world.

There are these very poor communities on the outskirts of Cairo called Mokattam, where a lot of the garbage collectors live. I used to volunteer there, doing health and education work when I was younger and living in Egypt.

If you can laugh with somebody and relate to somebody, it becomes harder to dehumanize them. I think that most of what we are constantly bombarded with in terms of media leads you to a creation of 'the Other' and a dehumanization of 'the Other,' and it's very much an us-versus-them conversation.

As the world is getting smaller, it becomes more and more important that we learn each other's dance moves, that we meet each other, we get to know each other, we are able to figure out a way to cross borders, to understand each other, to understand people's hopes and dreams, what makes them laugh and cry.

In making films, I'm constantly looking for people who are in conflict and who are going to surprise you and challenge you.

When I hear the words 'activist filmmaking,' I think of somebody who's an activist, who wants to prove a particular point.

Al Jazeera is demonized by the United States, yet in Egypt my father would be watching it.