Ahd

Ahd is a Saudi Arabian actress and filmmaker whose international notice came with Wadjda (2012), a BAFTA-nominated festival favorite that was Saudi Arabia's first feature film. She moved to New York in 1998 for legal studies at Columbia University, then earned a BFA in animation and communication from Parsons School of Design, and later trained in directing at the New York Film Academy and acting with William Esper at the Esper Studio. She began her film career in 2005 with a run of internationally successful short films that gathered festival prizes. Her first lead performance earned a Golden Gate Award for best actress from the San Francisco International Film Festival. La Sainteté, the second short she directed and appeared in, received a Golden Bear nomination at the 2013 Berlinale and won the Golden Aleph at the Beirut International Film Festival that year. She later worked as a technical advisor on Peter Berg's The Kingdom.