Amin Matalqa makes films that bridge the cultural gap between East and West. His first feature, Captain Abu Raed won the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Audience Award in 2008 and became Jordan’s first Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. Next, he directed Disney’s first Arabic language film, the soccer dramedy, The United. With his third feature, Strangely In Love, he made a whimsical LA-set comedy take on Dostoevsky’s novella, White Nights, co-starring Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction); followed by the desert-set action-adventure, The Rendezvous, starring Stana Katic (Castle, Absentia).
In Television, Amin co-wrote the pilot and directed two episodes of Netflix’s first Arabic original series, the supernatural show, Jinn. Next up, he is directing his first animated film, Hump, about a sweet camel who crosses the Arabian desert searching for his boy. Also in development are Fugee Hustle, a Midwest-set ping pong hustle film with a Syrian refugee in the lead, and a new TV show.
Amin lives in Los Angeles with his fiance, Meg, their baby Zoey, and Husky beast, Migo. Between films, he teaches directing at the American Film Institute, from which he also has his MFA in Directing.
Sundance Advisor //