DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY - Said Zagha

UK-based Palestinian filmmaker Said Zagha completed his undergraduate education at Ohio's Kenyon College in 2011. He's also a Berlinale Talents alumnus (2020) and has an M.A. in screenwriting from the London Film School (2022). Most recently, Said directed the first and second episodes of Crashing Eid, an Arabic-language original Netflix series set in Saudi Arabia, which stayed on Netflix’s top ten charts for over eight weeks, including in 32 territories. He has also written and directed two short films, working with star actors from the Arab world, such as Ali Suliman, Nisreen Faour, and others. His second short film, "Lovesick in the West Bank," was released at two Academy-qualifying festivals in 2021: Tampere and Urbanworld, among many others. His debut dramedy short, "Five Boys and a Wheel," premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2016. It played at 40+ festivals worldwide, winning three awards in Mexico, Oman, and Algeria. He is in the final development stages of his first feature film, Weedestine, a Palestine-set heist thriller, which has received support from the Royal Film Commission of Jordan, European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs (EAVE), Frontieres Market, Red Sea Film Fund, Doha Film Institute, and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC).