Nadine Labaki

Her movie Capernaum was nominated in the foreign-language Oscars category, which was a first for a female director in 2019. She is the first female Arab director to ever be nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Labaki's films challenge apathy towards important issues, such as the refugee crisis and poverty. Though themes of war and tragedy are prevalent in Labaki's works, so is humour. Her films cover the Lebanese Civil War and the lasting impacts it had on the country. Her experiences impacted Labaki personally as well as how it shaped her filmmaking. Labaki has stated that she feels that as a director she has to do something good for her country. She then decided that talking about problems such as poverty and the refugee crisis is important. FF2 Media covered a Q&A with Labaki in 2018 about her movie Capernaum, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year (as well as 34 other wins and 46 other nominations). She stated that while trying to brainstorm concepts for the script, her team came up with ideas that she wanted to include, such as "child labor, migrant labor rights, children's rights, the absurdity of having to have the papers to prove that you exist, the absurdity of borders, and early marriage". She believes that “Cinema can be a way to [create] change.” She has stated that she believes that politics and art are intertwined and that her films are her own “way of revolt”. According to Labaki, "sometimes, a line in a film, or a scene can make you think about yourself, about your decisions. By touching your hearts films can offer hope more than politics". Labaki's films have no solutions for the issues Lebanon faces, but she hopes that her films will "simply shake audiences out of their chronic lethargy". She has stated that for her, filmmaking and activism are one and the same, believing that cinema can effect social change.

In 2016, Labaki received an honorary degree from the American University of Beirut and was the speaker at the 150th Commencement Ceremony.

Nadine Labaki was a candidate on the list of the new political movement Beirut Madinati for the capital's May 2016 local election. Beirut Madinati focuses on social justice and the good of the public utilizing a diverse group of citizens as representatives.

She was selected to be on the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2014, Labaki was the goodwill ambassador for the bilingual and multimedia campaign produced by The Brave Heart Fund (BHF). Based out of the Children's Heart Center at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, the BHF creates awareness and helps to fund operations and procedures for underprivileged children with Congenital Heart Disease.

In late 2013, Nadine Labaki started work on her third feature film called Capernaum which was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of a 12-year-old boy living in the slums of Beirut. He strives to sue his parents for bringing him into a world of suffering and negligence of children. Labaki wrote the screenplay along with Jihad Hojeily, Michelle Kesrouani, Georges Khabbaz and her husband, Khaled Mouzanar. Mouzanar further produced the film and composed the music. The title Capernaum, means 'chaos'.

Capernaum won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and Labaki won Best Directing at the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

In a 2012 interview with Jan Lisa Huttner from FF2 Media, Labaki said: "I have a problem with injustice. I have a problem with seeing the wrong things around me and just not saying anything about them". She likes to address relevant issues and portray them through her art, be it acting, directing, or even dance. Her movie Where Do We Go Now? heavily incorporates dance, and in the same interview with FF2 Media, she mentioned that she has a background of being a dancer.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard category in 2011. The film won the Cadillac people's choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival. It also collected many other awards in festivals around the world, like Cannes Film Festival, San Sebastián International Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Doha Tribeca Film Festival. The film was also nominated for best foreign film at the Critics Choice Awards in Los Angeles. During its opening weekend, the film hit the largest ever admissions total for an Arabic-speaking film in Lebanon, amounting 21,475 admissions for a total of $153,358.

In 2010, Labaki directed and starred in her second feature film, Where Do We Go Now? The film humorously tackles a delicate subject about a war ravaged Middle Eastern village in which Muslim and Christian women try to keep their men from starting a religious war. The idea for this film first came about when Labaki was pregnant with her son in 2008. At that time, Lebanon was at the brink of its most violent turmoil in decades. Interreligious conflict led to outbursts in the streets of Beirut. Labaki speaks of friends becoming enemies due to religious differences. Preparing for motherhood, she began to ponder what extreme lengths mothers would go to prevent their sons from obtaining arms and taking to the streets to fight. This one idea sparked the narrative of this film, in which an entire town of women begin a mission to prevent the men from brutally killing each other. The story takes place in Lebanon, although never explicitly stated. Labaki's reasoning for this was that "the film is universal... this conflict does not only happen in Lebanon. I see it everywhere . . . We are scared of each other as human beings." Similarly to Caramel, her second feature casts non-professional actors. In effort to heighten the reality, Labaki states that "normal people deserve to be on the big screen."

Labaki starred in Stray Bullet, directed by Georges Hachem in 2010.

Labaki is multilingual, fluent in Arabic, French, English and Italian. In 2007, she married musician and composer Khaled Mouzanar. In 2009, Nadine Labaki gave birth to her first boy, Walid. In 2016, Labaki gave birth to a daughter, Mayroun.

In 2006, Labaki starred in "Bosta," a Lebanese musical comedy. The film was a box office success, outgrossing "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

In 2005, Labaki took part in the Cannes Film Festival Residence for six months, during that time, she wrote Caramel, her first feature film. In 2006, she directed and played one of the leading roles in Caramel, which showcases a Beirut that most people are not familiar with. Rather than tackle political issues that have plagued Lebanon, she presents a comedy that deals with five Lebanese women in Beirut who gather at a beauty salon and deal with issues related to love, sexuality, tradition, disappointment, and everyday ups and downs. The film premiered at the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, which was a commercial success in the summer of that same year. It sold worldwide and collected important prizes at many festivals around the world, garnering Labaki much acclaim both as a director and actress. It also put her on Variety's 10 Directors to Watch list at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2008 the French Ministry of Culture and Communication gave her the Insignia of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.

In 2003, Labaki's name began to become more popular within the Arab media. 2003 was also the year when she began directing music videos for singer Nancy Ajram. The song, "Akhasmak ah" (I'll taunt you), sparked controversy due to the nudity presented and its sexually explicit dancing. Ajram's female character, who serves as a waitress to male customers, was seen as inappropriate and too evocative Labaki defended her script, stating that Ajram was actually portraying an "assertive and powerful female figure". Labaki and Ajram worked to redefine the image of the current Arab woman as feminine, alluring and in control. Ajram continued to collaborate with Labaki on her music videos, "Ya Salam," "Lawn Ouyounak" and "Inta Eih." The three videos were awarded with best music video honors.

Nadine Labaki started acting in short films during the early 2000s. She starred in Zeina Durra's The Seventh Dog. The work won the audience award at the Circuito Off Venice International Short Film Festival in 2006.

In 1998, she attended a workshop in acting at the Cours Florent in Paris. With her sister Caroline Labaki as executive producer, she went on to direct advertisements and music videos for renowned Middle Eastern singers, for which she won several awards. Striving to project the contemporary Lebanese woman, she "created examples of Lebanese women who were very at ease in their bodies."

Labaki obtained a degree in audiovisual studies at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. In 1997, she directed her graduation film, 11 Rue Pasteur, which won the Best Short Film Award at the Biennale of Arab Cinema at the Arab World Institute in Paris. Labaki is unique among her fellow Lebanese and Arab Film Makers in that she was not educated or trained abroad.

Labaki was born in Baabdat, Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon, in a Maronite family to Antoine and Antoinette Labaki. Her father is an engineer while her mother is a homemaker. She spent the first seventeen years of her life living in a war-torn environment, until 1991 when the civil war in Lebanon had ended. Early in life she learned the art of story telling from her uncle, who was the family hakawati (story teller). Her grandfather also owned a small theatre in Lebanon where she found her love for film. She began her career with Studio El Fan, a Lebanese talent show, in 1990. The show aired during the 1970s, which continued through to the early 2000s. At the talent show, Labaki won a prize for directing various music video productions.

Nadine Labaki (Arabic: نادين لبكي ‎ Nādīn Labikī; born February 18, 1974) is a Lebanese actress, director and activist. Labaki first came into the spotlight as an actress in the early 2000s. Her film-making career began in 2007 after the release of her debut film, Caramel, which premiered at the Cannes 2007 Film Festival. She is known for demonstrating everyday aspects of Lebanese life and covering a range of political issues such as war, poverty, and feminism. She is the first female Arab director to be nominated for an Oscar in the category for Best Foreign Language Film.