Alia Yunis has focused her writing and filmmaking on memory and heritage, and, in that context, she thinks about trees a lot. She is currently producing an interactive documentary, Tree Routed, looking at how our different heritages and histories are connected through the migration of trees. She recently co-edited a special double issue on film and visual media in the Gulf for the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (Brill, 2022) and the forthcoming book, Re-Orienting the Middle East: Film and Digital Media Where the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean Meet (Indiana University Press, 2023). She is one of the contributing writers on the Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and Oxford Bibliographies. In 2010, she co-founded the Zayed University Middle East Film Festival (ZUMEFF), now the longest running film festival in the Gulf. She is also one of the two co-founders at UAE National Film Library housed at Zayed University. Alia holds a BA in Journalism and Political Science from University of Minnesota, an MA in Film from American University in Washington, DC and a PhD in Heritage and Memory Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Her second feature documentary, The Golden Harvest (2019), made its debut at Thessaloniki International Film Festival, won Best of the Fest at its US debut at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival continues to play in several other festivals and venues around the world.