FOC S O GERU MANYN by Tala l Al M uhanna
SCRIPT TALK
As part of a new Q & A series focusing on Arab screenwriters, Media Production profiles three female filmmakers - asking them about inspiration, the process of scriptwriting and their past and current productions.
A native of Saudi Arabia, Ahd Kamel is a filmmaker and actress based in New York City. She studied acting at the Esper Studio, received her directing degree from New York Film Academy and her BFA in Animation & Communication from Parsons School of Design in New York City.
later went on to screen at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in (2007). Aside from developing her own film projects, Ahd has also worked as a set assistant and technical advisor on director Peter Berg’s feature film The Kingdom. Currently, Ahd is working on her first fiction feature screenplay, the social dramedy Smile, You’re in Jeddah!
Recent festivals/awards: The Shoemaker at 6th Dubai International Film Festival 2009 (official competition); The Shoemaker at 32nd International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand 2010 (official competition).
Current project: Smile, You’re in Jeddah!
Synopsis: Smile, You’re in Jeddah! is the story of a young Saudi woman named Ruba who is grappling with her unconventional decision to marry her American boyfriend Reade. Although her husband-to-be agrees to convert to Islam to satisfy her family’s demands for a more compatible partner for Ruba, life between these two worlds turns out to be even more complicated than she ever imagined. The bold and vivacious Ruba soon finds herself torn between tradition and modernity in this inter-cultural story of love, life and wedding day traumas.
Past project at-a-glance: The Shoemaker (2009)
Ahd’s directorial debut, Three Queens, was screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival and for her acting debut - in the short film Razan (directed by Aslihan Unaldi) - Kamel won the Golden Gate Award for Best Actress at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The film
Logline for The Shoemaker: Saber, an Iraqi shoemaker, returns to his family after a period of two years detention.
Scene from The Shoemaker by Ahd Kamel (Saudi Arabia/USA/Egypt, 2009, 16 min, HD, Arabic with English subtitles)