Angelina Jolie Joins Refugee Sports Documentary ‘We Dare to Dream’ as Executive Producer

Scott Roxborough
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Oscar-winning actor and activist Angelina Jolie has signed on as an executive producer on We Dare to Dream, the new documentary from Oscar-nominated director Waad Al-Kateab (For Sama).

We Dare to Dream tells the story of the young, stateless athletes from Iran, Syria, South Sudan and Cameroon who competed together under the banner of the IOC Refugee Olympic team at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. We Dare to Dream has its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival on Sunday.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Jolie has long been a vocal advocate for the rights of refugees. The actor and filmmaker served as a goodwill ambassador for UN refugee agency the UNHCR from 2001 to 2012 and as a special envoy from 2012 to 2022.

“I have long admired Angelina’s clear-sighted and principled approach to human rights and refugee issues,” Al-Kateab said in a statement. “She has been a true ally to the refugee community and to me personally over the last two years. I am absolutely honored to welcome her to this team and to partner with her in upholding the rights and dignity of refugees.”

Al-Kateab explored her own experience of war and displacement in her 2019 debut, For Sama, co-directed with Edward Watts, which premiered at South By Southwest and won the Cannes Film Festival’s Golden Eye award for best documentary, The film traces Al-Kateab’s journey as a young mother through the beginning of the Syrian war in 2012 through the fall of her hometown of Aleppo in December 2016. For Sama won the BAFTA for best documentary in 2020 and received an Oscar nomination.

“Since first meeting Waad Al-Kateab, I saw that she is a force for good of extraordinary talent and vision,” Jolie said in a statement. “Her artistry in exploring the refugee experience will always stay with me and I am deeply proud to stand alongside her in support of We Dare to Dream, the issues it explores and the people around the world that this exceptional film seeks to lift up.”

We Dare to Dream was produced by Joanna Natasegara (The White Helmets, Virunga) and Abigail Anketell-Jones (The Edge of Democracy) for Violet Films together with Bryn Mooser (Lifeboat, Body Team 12) and Kathryn Everett of XTR Studios and Joe Gebbia of Studio Gebbia.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter

Click here to read the full article.