Nayla Al Khaja

Nayla Al Khaja, the first female Director/Producer in the United Arab Emirates.

Nayla Al Khaja (Arabic: نايلة الخاجة‎‎), born in Dubai on March 7, 1978, is the first female film Director/Producer in the United Arab Emirates. She is the CEO of Nayla Al Khaja Films, a Dubai-based film production company previously named D-Seven Motion Pictures, and founder of The Scene Club, Dubai’s first film club, launched in 2007. Al Khaja wrote, produced and directed several films, presented and awarded in international film festivals.

Holder of a degree in Mass Communication from Dubai Women's College, she graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor in Image Studies and Filmmaking from Ryerson University (Canada). Back to Dubai, she directed and produced her first film, Unveiling Dubai. Supported by H.H. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE’s Minister of Higher Education, this documentary premiered at the 2006 Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).

In 2006, Al Khaja wrote and directed her first short film, Arabana about child abuse, which premiered at DIFF 2007. The same year, she was awarded the title of Best Emirati Filmmaker. She wrote and directed three more short films: Once (2009), Malal (2010) and The Neighbor (2013). Malal received the Muhr Emirati Award at DIFF 2010 and The Neighbor was awarded Best Emirati Film at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Film Festival. In October 2016, she shot the pilot of her first feature film, Animal, nominated for the Muhr Emirati Awards at DIFF 2016. This short film received the Jury’s Special Prize for Best Short Fiction at the Italian Movie Award in Pompeii, Italy, in September 2017. In 2017 and 2018, she is developing her first feature film, Animal.

Since inception, in 2005, Nayla Al Khaja’s production house, D-Seven Motion Pictures, has been focusing on projects fully developed and produced locally. Over the years, she produced in the UAE numerous promotional films and TV commercials for local and international brands, while mentoring young Arab talents. In 2015, her company was hired by Discovery Studios for a TV show about Dubai Housewives. An American reality-show channel bought the rights for this show and D-Seven Motion Pictures line-produced its pilot, entirely shot in Dubai. The same year, the Dubai Film and TV Commission asked Al Khaja’s company to shoot a behind-the-scenes film for Star Trek Beyond to highlight Dubai as a regional filming hub. In parallel, her film club, The Scene Club (22,000 registered members), has been continuously presenting to the UAE audiences a wide selection of independent movies and award-winning films in their original format. The year 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the club, and new venues are scheduled to open in the Abu Dhabi and Sharjah emirates. In 2017, to remain in line with Al Khaja’s expansion strategy and the changes in the film industry, globally and regionally, D-Seven Motion Pictures rebranded to Nayla Al Khaja Films.

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