Omar Naim
| Omar Naim II | |
|---|---|
| Born |
27 September 1977 Amman, Jordan |
| Nationality | Lebanese |
| Other names | Omar Naïm |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1998–present |
Omar Naim (Arabic: عمر نعيم; born 27 September 1977) is a Lebanese film director and screenwriter, perhaps best known for writing and directing the 2004 film The Final Cut.
Omar Naim was born in Jordan to the Lebanese journalist father and the Lebanese renowned actress and playwright mother Nidal Al-Ashkar. Growing up surrounded by artists, musicians and writers, Naim had a childhood enriched with art culture. His parents were both in theater and film. His mother, Nidal Al-Ashkar, the matriarch of Lebanese theater, is the founder of Masrah Al-Madina (The City Theater) where she was decorated by the French government in 1997 with a Knight Grade Decoration of Arts and Letters.
Naim had his first film-going experience at 14. As he grew more and more fascinated with the world of cinema, he became furthermore interested in nurturing the abilities of writing and visuals. As an aspiring filmmaker, Naim was mostly inspired by directors like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Oliver Stone and Spike Lee.
With the help of the Fares Foundation, Naim went on to study film at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. During his four-year education at Emerson, Naim created a number of short films, among which figures his 1999 thesis, a 28-minute documentary titled Grand Theater: A Tale of Beirut. In this work, Naim puts the spotlight on Beirut’s historic Grand Theater, which was torn in a violent no-man's land between two bellicose sides in the Lebanese civil war. The theater serves as a metaphorical illustration for Lebanon's tragic 15-year civil war. Through the eyes of the old theater, the different tales of actors, directors, soldiers and civilians are woven together at the Grand Theater. As war escalates in scale and absurdity, the lines between war and theater, as well as between show and reality, become blurred. The film earned Naim several awards at Emerson, an Honorable Mention, and played at a number of international festivals. Naim was also a finalist for the Student Oscar given by the AMPAS in 2000. Above all, and perhaps most importantly, this film earned the young director loaded hands-on experience he needed to be able to tackle his next giant project, which was still dormant at that time. “I learned everything making that film, from inception to print”, says Naim.
...
Wikipedia