Thought Leader Symposium: Sundance Discusses Israel & Palestine

Join us Jan. 24 from 8:00-9:30 a.m. at the Little America Hotel for a Thought Leader Symposium featuring Hilla Medalia, producer of 2018 Sundance Film Festival’s The Oslo Diaries. Medalia and our panel will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its history, current state of affairs and impact on businesses and the economy. Check-in will begin at 7:30 a.m.
This Thought Leader Symposium is hosted by World Trade Center Utah and Zions Bank in partnership with the Sundance Institute. 

Agenda
7:30 - Check-in
8 - Event Begins, Breakfast and Panel
9:30 - Event concludes 
Information about the director and the Sundance films can be viewed below or at Sundance.org.

About The Film
In 1992, with Israeli-Palestinian relations at a low and official communication suspended, an unlikely group of negotiators—two Israeli professors and three PLO members—met secretly in Norway. To these unsanctioned meetings, the bitter enemies brought fiercely held convictions: the Palestinians saw occupiers, the Israelis saw terrorists, and both saw a history of failed negotiations. But united in the serious desire for peace, they continued through disheartening setbacks, escalating violence, and fraught government politics, ultimately reaching an accord few thought possible.
A comprehensive, dramatic account of the negotiations and their intricate context, The Oslo Diaries recounts a geopolitical story, but its narrative voice is personal and philosophical. Articulated through the participants’ diaries and incorporating unseen archival footage, it offers a broadly resonant portrait of diplomacy, the delicate nature of peace, and individuals who, sitting in fundamental opposition, nonetheless found common ground and, in some cases, came to regard their counterparts as friends. With politics ultimately dooming the accord, one negotiator wondered if Oslo was a story of triumph or defeat before observing that the story’s end remains unwritten.

PANELISTS
Oslo Diaries Producer Hilla Medalia
Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Hilla Medalia has received three Emmy® nominations. Her projects have garnered critical acclaim and screened internationally in theaters and on television including HBO, MTV, BBC and ARTE. Her range of titles include 'To Die in Jerusalem' 2007 (HBO), 'After the Storm' 2009 (MTV), 'Numbered' 2012 (ARTE), 'Dancing in Jaffa' 2013 (Tribeca, IFC Sundance selects), 'Web Junkie' 2014 (Sundance Film Festival, POV (PBS), BBC), 'The Go Go Boys' 2014 (Cannes Film Festival, 'Censored Voices' 2015) Sundance Film Festival, Berlinale(, ‘Muhi – Generally Temporary’ 2017 (SF Film Festival, HotDocs) and most recently ‘The Oslo Diaries’ 2018 (Sundance Film Festival).
Hilla is a mentor for the NFCT’s Business Card Program for Emerging Filmmakers she acts as lector and judge at film festivals and forums, Hilla is a member of The American Academy of Motion Picture and The Israeli Academy of Film and Television, a board member of the Pacific Council and The Israeli Director's Guild. Medalia holds a Master of Arts from Southern Illinois University.

Tarek Mango
Tarek Mango, partner and managing director of Mango Enterprises, completed his secondary education in Scotland and Cambridge, England. He obtained a bachelor’s in Middle East Studies at University of Utah and another in International Business at Westminster College. He received his M.B.A. in International Business at Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of Global Management. Tarek has been involved in international trade and business development for the past 18+ years. He has successfully consulted for, built, and introduced U.S. health care related brands into Middle Eastern, Asian, and European markets. 
Tarek has been on a number of business advisory boards pertaining to the Middle East and a mentor to students in the International Leadership Academy at the University of Utah. He continues to support and consult Utah’s business roundtables pertaining to Middle East endeavors, and works with GOED (Utah Governor’s Office for Economic Development) on matters relating to the Middle East. He has been the chapter president of the Thunderbird Alumni Association Utah Chapter since 2005, and serves on a number of startup boards in the health care sector.