In 2009, she directed her critically acclaimed multi-award-winning debut feature film 'Pomegranates and Myrrh'.
Aswan International Women Film Festival will honour Palestinian writer and director Najwa Najjar at its fifth edition, which will take place from June 24 – 29, in Aswan.
She will be honoured for being an iconic role model for this generation of filmmakers and creatives in cinema in the Arab world.
This is the first Egyptian film festival that specialises in workshops for youth in the Aswan governorate.
The AIWFF is an event aimed at highlighting the greatest women in Arab cinema and their works. The event holds a variety of workshops for creative youths aimed at training them to become filmmakers.
Najjar received her BA in Political Science and Economics, her MA in Film in the United States. She has worked in both documentary and fiction as a director, writer and producer of various short films. Her first fictional feature film was the critically acclaimed multi-award-winning debut Pomegranates and Myrrh (2009). Her second award-winning feature film Eyes of a Thief (2014) was the Palestinian nomination for the 2015 Oscars Best Foreign Film and the Golden Globe Awards. Between Heaven and Earth (2019) is her third feature.
Her previous work includes award-winning documentaries and shorts which have screened worldwide, among others in Berlin, Cannes and Locarno: Yasmine’s Song (2006), Naim and Wadee’a (2000), Quintessence of Oblivion (2001), Blue Gold (2004), A Boy Called Mohamad (2002) and They Came from the East which opened the European Film Awards in 2004.
Najjar has also produced a collection of short films by international filmmakers, Gaza Winter (2009). In 2002 Hani Kort and Najwa Najjar established Ustura Films Ltd. in Ramallah, Palestine. The production company’s mission is to create alternative narratives, develop the budding local cinema industry and support artists in the field. In 2012 Kort and Najjar registered another branch of the company in Amman, Jordan.