NADINE LABAKI: HER CAREER TO DATE
1990: Labaki launches her career directing music videos, for which she wins an award on the popular Lebanese talent show Studio El Fan. The videos are notable for their cinematic quality. Labaki continues to direct videos for the show until its end, in the early 2000s, after a four-decade run on Lebanese screens.
1997: Labaki graduates from Beirut’s St Joseph University. She is unusual among the Lebanese filmmaking community in that she did not study abroad. Her graduation film, 11 Rue Pasteur, won the Best Short Film Award at the Biennale of Arab Cinema at the Arab World Institute in Paris.
1998: Labaki attends a workshop in acting at the Cours Florent in Paris. She will go on to appear in many of her own productions, as well as other directors’ works, as well as directing. She also starts to direct adverts alongside her music video work.
2003: Labaki begins directing music videos for Lebanese star Nancy Ajram, including her most famous work of this era, the 2003 video for Ajram’s Akhasmak Ah. The video aligns Ajram with the Egyptian actress Hind Rostom, “the Marilyn Monroe of Egyptian cinema”, and won plenty of fans, particularly in Egypt, as a result. It also attracted criticism, however, thanks to Ajram’s revealing dress and provocative dancing. Palestinian poet Tamim Al Barghouti was among the critics, accusing Arabic pop videos of submitting to western style in an article in Lebanon’s Daily Star.
2005: Labaki takes part in the Cannes Film Festival Residence for six months. During that time, she writes Caramel, (pictured below) her first feature film, which she went on to direct and star in. The film showcases a Beirut that most people are not familiar with. Rather than tackle political issues, she presents a comedy that deals with five Lebanese women who gather at a beauty salon and deal with issues related to love, sexuality, tradition, disappointment and everyday ups and downs. 2007: Caramel premieres at the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. It sells worldwide and collects prizes at many festivals, garnering Labaki acclaim both as a director and as an actress. It also puts Labaki on Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch list at the Sundance Film Festival.
2008: The French Ministry of Culture and Communication awards Labaki the Insignia of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. 2011: Labaki’s second feature, Where Do We Go Now? premieres in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. The film humorously tackles religious tension in a village where a church and a mosque stand side-by-side. It went on to claim the Cadillac People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and picks up awards at other festivals, including those at San Sebastian and Stockholm. The movie is also nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Critics’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles.
2014: Labaki sits alongside Lee Daniels on the judging panel for the Dubai International Film Festival’s Muhr Awards, and also takes time off to hit the red carpet for the regional premiere of Xavier Beauvois’s The Price of Fame, in which she stars. She puts her judging experience to good use a year later, when she is selected to join the panel for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.
2018: Capharnaum picks up the Jury Prize in Cannes’ main competition. The film, about a child who leaves his neglectful parents to live on the streets of Beirut and who stabs someone, receives a 15-minute standing ovation at its premiere. Is Labaki’s already strong career now about to go stellar?