EXCLUSIVE: Dubai-based global management and production company 75East has signed Lebanese writer-director Nay Tabbara, whose short film Ebb & Flow won the Student Visionary Award at its Tribeca world premiere in June.
Inspired by real events and the political instabilities of the early 2000s in Lebanon, the short follows 14-year-old Loulwa whose plans for a secret date behind her family’s back take an unexpected turn when a bomb explodes in Beirut.
The short followed its Tribeca success with an impressive Academy-Qualifying festival run, screening in competition at festivals including Palm Springs International ShortFest, IndyShorts International Film Festival, HollyShorts Film Festival, and Nashville Film Festival.
Nay Tabbara is a multi-hyphenate Lebanese filmmaker based between New York City and Beirut.
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She gained experience on set, working as an assistant director in her native Lebanon for the likes of Ziad Doueiri and Mounia Akl, before moving to the U.S. to earn a MFA in Filmmaking degree from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Graduate Film program.
Tabbara’s previous short film Frayed Roots world premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in 2020 and went on to screen in several other festivals.
She is also a skilled editor, co-editing Punter, a short film directed by Jason Adam Maselle, which received a Special Mention in the Junior Jury Short Film Competition at its Locarno Film Festival world premiere in August.
Her other editing credits include the feature film Stockade, directed by Eric McGinty, which world premiered in 2023 in competition at the Woodstock Film Festival.
Tabbara is currently teaching editing as a visiting professor at Tisch, in addition to helping run and coordinate the program’s Post Production department as well as developing her own projects.
75East, was launched last December by former Mister Smith sales executive Antone Saliba (originally under the name of Untamed Talent, which was rebranded) with a focus on the SWANA region, encompassing South West Asia and North Africa.
Further talents on its books include Abu Bakr Shawky (Yomeddine, Hajjan); Bassel Ghandour (Theeb, The Alleys); Amjad Al Rasheed (Inshallah A Boy); Firas Khoury (Alam, Maradona’s Legs); Faris Alrjoob (The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry); Yassmina Karajah (Rupture) and Mahdi Fleifel (To A Land Unknown).
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