A media artist, director, educator and humanitarian, Douglas Herman has been guiding young adults to develop professional media creation skills for two decades. In Philadelphia, Douglas pioneered Rough Cut Media, a film and digital media production program and nonprofit, which gave birth to the annual Rough Cut Film Festival. In 2017, he felt compelled to relocate to Greece, and co-founded ReFOCUS Media Labs to ensure asylum seekers denied formal education could have the same access and training as their American and European counterparts.
ReFOCUS has certified hundreds of asylum seekers in media skills and assists them in securing employment as freelance creators. In 2019 ReFOCUS premiered their first feature documentary “Even After Death”, which chronicled deaths at sea and the struggle of identifying the missing. In the face of extreme challenges in 2020 well-beyond Covid, ReFOCUS felt compelled to launch a citizen journalism program to report on the structural violence being faced every day, fueling their 2nd feature documentary “Trapped in the Playground”, premiering Fall 2021. ReFOCUS continues to shed light on the ongoing human rights abuses faced every day along the borders of Europe.