Mehreen Jabbar Biography
Mehreen is a Pakistani American director who’s a 20 year veteran of the industry, with a prolific career as Director/Producer of gritty, hard hitting films and TV series for Pakistan and South Asia which have earned her both critical and commercial success. Mehreen has also made a number of narrative shorts that have been screened internationally in film festivals as well as on TV.
Her award winning short films and TV series include ‘Daughters of the Late Colonel”, “Beauty Parlor”, “Doraha” amongst others. In 2008 Mehreen directed her debut feature film titled ‘Ramchand Pakistani’ for which she was awarded the ‘Global Film Initiative Grant’. The film premiered in competition at the Tribeca Film Festival and continued a successful festival and theatrical run.
The film was awarded the ‘Fipresci Prize’ by the ‘International Federation of Film Critics’, the ‘Audience Award’ at the ‘Fribourg Film Festival’, Switzerland and an ‘Honorable Mention’ by the 13th Annual Satyajit Ray Award at the London Film Festival. In 2010 Mehreen was invited to screen her film at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
She has received numerous awards for her directorial work. Mehreen has been a member of the National Board of Film Censors in Karachi and a founding member of the KaraFilm Festival in Karachi, Pakistan and WAR (War Against Rape). She was invited to serve as a juror at the Leeds International Film Festival in 2002, at the HUM TeleFilm Awards in 2012 and at the ARY Film Awards in 2015.
She was also the Artistic Director at the Maisha Film Lab in Uganda in 2011 which is a nonprofit training lab founded by director Mira Nair. Mehreen lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her second feature film ‘Dobara Phir Se’ which was shot in both New York and Karachi is set for a worldwide theatrical release end of November, 2016.
