Emirati filmmaker Nahla Al Fahad: ‘I always aim to make distinctive work’

Nahla Al Fahad, who has been quietly compiling a portfolio of work over the past 10 years, says her aim has always been to make films that are both original and offbeat.

When the in-demand Emirati director finally gets some time to herself, you would imagine she would allow herself a short moment of self-reflection.

Three years ago, Al Fahad was rushing around a Sharjah warehouse, coordinating lithe dancers as they gyrated to the sound of Diana Haddad’s latest pop hit, Wadi Haki. Today, she’s reflecting on her first documentary feature film, The Tainted Veil, which deals with attitudes towards the incredibly emotive subject of the hijab. And yet the only thing Haddad is wearing on her head in that pop video is a pair of large, bright pink headphones. “Well, I’ve always aimed to make distinctive work,” Al Fahad says with a laugh. “Work that people can say: ‘Yes, Nahla did that.’”

It’s such dedication to her subject matter that has propelled Al Fahad to the point where her first soap opera, the Kuwait-based Wars of Hearts, will be broadcast on MBC1 after Ramadan. And later in the year, she will begin work on Maryam, her debut feature film, which she has written and will direct.

So although years of working on corporate videos, commercials and videos for government ministries, plus a regular diet of music videos, might have seemed prosaic, it was all part of a gradual process to improve and find her style. Meanwhile, people were watching her development with interest.

“The executive producer of The Tainted Veil, Sheikha Alyazia, selected me to direct because she’d seen my work,” says Al Fahad. “I met her and was so excited by the project because the topic of the hijab is so emotive. So I did what I always do – I worked really hard.

Original article by Ben East

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Emirati filmmaker Nahla Al Fahad: ‘I always aim to make distinctive work’