I didn’t choose filmmaking. It chose me the moment I realized silence was no longer an option.
As an Arab woman, I grew up in a world that often asked us to lower our voices, to shrink ourselves, to smile even when we were breaking. But stories have a way of leaking through the cracks. And when you’ve lived through war, exile, heartbreak, and survival — your story becomes your resistance.
That’s where the lens comes in.
Filmmaking, for many of us Arab women, isn’t about the red carpet or the applause. It’s about making sense of what broke us, what saved us, and what still lives inside. When we film, we aren’t trying to impress — we’re trying to process. The camera becomes a bridge between what we can’t say out loud and what we can finally release into the world.
I still remember shooting my first documentary. My hands were shaking. Not because I doubted my skills, but because I was filming a woman who reminded me of my mother — strong, tired, beautiful, unheard. That day, I realized something: we film to feel. To reconnect. To remember who we are.
Every frame becomes an archive of emotion. A whisper of things we weren’t allowed to say. A mirror reflecting a truth no one wanted to see.
In a region where female voices are often drowned out by tradition, censorship, or conflict, filmmaking is an act of healing and defiance. We’re not just documenting — we’re rewriting what it means to be Arab, to be women, to be whole. Our cameras are not just tools. They are extensions of our grief, our hope, our desire to be understood.
Filmmaking isn’t always glamorous. Sometimes it’s editing on a cracked laptop. Sometimes it’s asking your neighbor to hold the mic. Sometimes it’s filming in silence because words hurt too much. But it’s real. And it matters.
So when you see an Arab woman behind the camera, know this: she’s not filming to be noticed. She’s filming to survive. To honor the girl who was told she couldn’t. To archive our joy between bombings. To make space for the next generation of storytellers who will carry our dreams further.
This is not just cinema. This is soul work. This is healing disguised as art.
And we will keep filming — not for the spotlight, but for the light inside us.
