Filmmakers and Producers

Born in 1959, Beirut, Lebanon, Mohamed Soueid began his academic life very distant from the world of film and video. In 1977, he enrolled to study Chemistry at the Lebanese University. Yet, his passion for reading and telling the stories of the world around him using films took the best out of him. Where immediately after he completed his studies he began a career in film criticism where he wrote weekly columns for Al-Safir daily newspaper, as well as for the weekly cultural supplement (Al-Mulhak) of An-Nahar daily newspaper. From there Soueid's career in reading films kept on expanding where he wrote a collection of books and studies that carried a great insight into the world of cinema within the Arab world, such as “ Postponed Cinema – The Lebanese Civil War Films” (published by “Arab Research Foundation”, Beirut, 1986) and “ Ya Fouadi – A Chronicle of Beirut’s Late Movie Theatres” (published by “Dar An-Nahar”, Beirut, 1996).

While continuing with his career in film criticism Mohamed had the desire to be closer to the actually making of films. He began as an assistant director for a number of filmmakers on films like: “The Explosion” by Rafik Hajjar (Lebanon, 1982), “The Return of the Hero” by Samir Ghosaini (Lebanon, 1983), “Une Vie Suspendue” by Jocelyne Saab (Lebanon – France – Canada, 1984). After he directed his first film “Absence” in 1990, Mohamed followed a screen writing workshop held by the FEMIS in Montpellier 1992, and then went on to execute his own documentaries and TV works, where he was notably known by his autobiographical trilogy full-length documentaries “Tango of Yearning” (1998), “Nightfall” (2000) and “Civil War” (2002).

Apart from his documentary independent works, Mohamed Soueid directed the TV mini series drama “Women in Love”, a free remake of a classical work produced by Télé Liban in the 70s and then directed by Samir Nasri. Carmen Lobbos, Julia Kassar and Carole Abboud were among the leading cast of Soueid’s remake.

Today, Mohamed Soueid, the winner of the Best Director Prize at the Arab TV Works Festival in Cairo 1996, for his film, "Roses of Passion", as well as the best documentary director prize at Beirut International Film Festival in Beirut 2000 for “Tango of Yearning”, continues to write in film criticism while doing his own films. For several years, he was Film Professor at St. Joseph University – Beirut. He also developed a number of screenplays, where he co-wrote with the Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah the feature length film “Bab’l Shams” – “Gate to the Sun”(France – Egypt 2004), and also adapted the Lebanese dialogues for “Terra Incognita” and “Le Dernier Homme”, both directed by Ghassan Salhab (France-Lebanon 2001 and 2006), and wrote the voice over text for the documentary “Living Icons”, by Dimitri Khodr (52’, Lebanon 1998). As well as, co-writing, “The Candidate” by Akram Zaatari (20’, Lebanon 1995).

Since 2002, Mohamed Soueid has been assigned as senior producer for “O3 Productions”, the documentary sister company of the MBC satellite TV Group. In 2004, he directed “A Newspaper’s Story” and his first novel “Cabaret Souad” was released by the Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Adab.