Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya

Winner of the Étoile d'Or handed to him by jury president Francis Ford Coppola at the 2015 Marrakech International Film Festival, Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya was also named Best New Director at the 2016 Beijing International Film Festival, and has received numerous other international recognition for Very Big Shot which is Lebanon's official submission for Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards®. Born in 1989, Bou Chaaya obtained his Master's degree in Filmmaking, with high distinction, from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in 2012. He began his career in 2008 with a music video dedicated to Lebanese army martyrs, and has written, directed and edited eight short films, two of which won several awards at acclaimed international film festivals. He also collaborated with names like Soundwalk, world-renowned sound artists, on projects such as Ulysses Syndrome (Naples, 2010) and Eternal Hell (Abu Dhabi, 2011). He later directed a 12 episodes' television show and wrote 10 short documentaries profiling Arab immigrants in Argentina. Mir-Jean acts as Chief Content Creator at Kabreet Productions SARL and has acted as producer and script consultant on Kabreet's second feature 'TV Society' (expected 2019). He's also director and executive producer on 'JINN' - the first Netflix Arabic original series - and script consultant on a new MBC TV series in development.