Oh, dear God, that is a real long story. I am not even kidding. It’s almost a 30 years long of a story. I will try not to bore you. I think I inherited the story telling skills from my mom . She is magnificent, she cancels every other entertainment system until today she still fascinates me.

When I was a kid I use to watch things on tv and when I go to bed I use to reimagine these stories with different endings adding to them my favorite characters from different shows or films. it used to be my favorite thing to do. I don’t know where I lost that exactly. All what I remember that I had a pretty tough teenage years where I use to hate everything and everyone. I feel sorry for putting my parents through that. I love them dearly for keeping up with it and to be so understanding and mostly keeping me alive. I was a wild beast. I don’t think I understood what “NO” means back then. Bless my parents, they are the real heroes.

Years passed and I got a scholarship to the US at the age of 21 and at the end of my 22 nd year I got a job as a cabin crew in the UAE and I did that for 5 years. I traveled the world and I have lived a life that many people dream of living. But through it all I wasn’t happy. Something was missing, I didn’t know what it was. At that point all my friends had a plan for their lives they had goals and dreams to achieve and I felt like I was traveling the world looking for something that I didn’t know what it was exactly. It scared me to death. I feared for my future. The idea killed me from the inside. It led me to depression and stress.

I remember I was 25 at the time and I was on a trip to Nagoya, Japan. I promised myself that I wouldn’t leave without buying myself a gift that will get me out of that situation that I was at. Our hotel was connected to this huge tower mall that every floor is specialized in something. I remember I left that building with a camera and I was very happy. I didn’t know why but I was the happiest human being at the time. I took a decision to pursue a career in film but I didn’t know how. Taking the decision wasn’t enough. I had to let go of all the comfort that I was living in. Couple of years forward Covid hit and I was let go by the company like so many others and I remember one of my friends asking me “why are you so happy” and I remember saying “because I can be what I always wanted to be.” What was surprising in the whole thing was the unconditional support of my family, emotionally and financially. My family is my greatest gift in this life from God. He knew that my path wouldn’t be easy so he gave me the most supportive family ever.

The year was 2020, I started the year in the UAE, in June I was in Tunisia with my parents for the summer, end of August I was in Turkey and that’s where I started film school. I did a year in Turkey then I transferred all of my credits to a university in Lebanon because I needed to leave I lost all emotional connection that I use to have to the city of Istanbul and staying their start feeling like a trap. Even though my GPA was 4.0 and my university back in turkey was offering a nice deal that it was very hard to pass on. Moving to Beirut was the hardest thing I have ever done but it was what I need it to shape me to the artist I am today. In many ways this broken place have healed me and we built a sort of connection that it makes this city a huge part of me now. Here I spent my first winter alone, I didn’t get the chance to develop a comfort zone, I learned how to enjoy my own company, I learned how to deal with my feelings instead of disregarding them. I have been on my first set in here. I wrote and produced my first film in here and I won my first award in here. it’s a love story that I can’t explain.

And if you are asking me why I stayed it’s because that the whole journey was leading to it. how can I not and this was my journey. I don’t think I had a choice but to just do what it has to be done. Make a mistake after anther until I ended up here and be the artist I am today and live to make films.