NYFA / ALUMNI / SCREENWRITING / MESHAL AL JASER
Meshal Al Jaser
SCREENWRITER | DIRECTOR
Graduated from NYFA LA Campus in 2020
Meshal Al Jaser is an award-winning Saudi Arabian director, writer, and actor best known for his bold, genre-blending storytelling. His feature debut, NAGA (2023), a tense desert thriller, premiered in the Midnight Madness section at the Toronto International Film Festival and is currently streaming on Netflix. Al Jaser gained international recognition with Arabian Alien (2020), a sci-fi short exploring depression and cultural tension through the lens of an alien encounter. The film premiered at Sundance (Grand Jury Prize nominee), won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the Atlanta Film Festival, and qualified for Oscar consideration. He was named GQ Middle East’s Filmmaker of the Year in 2021.
Al Jaser first rose to fame as a teenager creating viral satirical videos for popular Arabic-language YouTube channels like FOLAIM Ya Gholaim and Telfaz 11, which collectively garnered hundreds of millions of views. His professional directorial debut, Is Sumiyati Going to Hell? (2016), tackled domestic worker abuse in Saudi Arabia and was featured in Netflix’s Six Windows in the Desert anthology; it also won a Gold Movie Award. He followed with Under Concrete (2017), winner of the Qomrah Award.
Meshal Al Jaser Alum Work
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Netflix Streams Two Short Films by New York Film Academy (NYFA) Alumni
In the interest of promoting social issues and international diversity, Netflix has curated a series of six films from Saudi Arabia, including two shorts by New York Film Academy (NYFA)…