Yasmina Benari was born in 1979 in Paris, France. She studied music (classical violin) and Arts at the Collège des Enfants du Spectacle from age 15. She then moved to Belgium to enter university and holds two masters in International Politics and Contemporary Arab and Muslim World. After working in International cooperation and humanitarian aid (Egypt, Cuba), she started filming as a tool to document social movements and minorities.
Selected to take part in a documentary course at the Danish Film School of Copenhagen, she was granted a financial support to direct her first long feature documentary, With Open Eyes. The film has received the award for best documentary at the Festival “Les rencontres de l’image” 2009.
She has resided in many different countries and spent 5 years in Egypt. Currently she is working on her second feature documentary film Titi El Masry soon to be released. Her photographic work focuses on portraits, street photography and social movements. She has recently documented through film and photography the Egyptian uprising and its aftermath.