Nadia Shihab

Trained as an urban planner and raised in west Texas by an Iraqi mother and a Yemini father, Nadia Shihab began making films in order to explore her connections to the places she calls home. Her films are marked by their intimacy, and often explore the act of forging roots despite internal landscapes of dislocation. Her half-hour film Amal’s Garden (2012) was filmed in northern Iraq and screened in festivals and galleries internationally, including at Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Dubai International Film Festival, the Walker Art Center, and the Arab American National Museum. She has also composed music for films and her soundscapes often build from meditative rhythmic cycles into dense atmospheres streaked with melodic phrasing. Shihab’s work has been supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund, Tribeca Film Institute, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Firelight Media, ENJAAZ, and the Center for Asian American Media. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Turkey and a Flaherty Fellow. She lives and works in Oakland, California.