May Ziadé is a French & Lebanese filmmaker and filmworker based in London.

She writes, directs & produces short films.

Browse the site to learn more about her last short Neo Nahda (a short coming-of-age film that deals with queer and feminist histories of the Middle East, the process of browsing and rediscovering lost archives, and how these can be a portal for the imagination and the realm of inner projections - how they can produce meaning beyond historical truths) & Mrs El Araby (a micro short experimental film that explores the space within which Arab women are allowed to exist in Western Media).

In 2023, May co-founded the production company Other People’s Films with Antonia Luxem.

“I'm a filmmaker. My film practice is first and foremost deeply rooted in archival research and problematises the discovery and recovery of subaltern histories. Formally, I am inspired by the performing arts and the sensibilities that come to life on a stage, as well as worlds that blend realism with artificial, theatrical underworlds. This balance shifts with each project, and I make decisions collaboratively by trusting the instinct that my collaborators and I build together. I encourage myself and the crew to question the extent to which artifice can be the key to revealing some of humanity's hidden truths—and to explore the tensions that arise when non-fiction and fiction coexist. I make films and write stories to better understand the physical and emotional consequences of cultural and societal pressures to conform. I’m drawn to characters who carry, for better or worse, a desperate desire to 'fit in'—to find their place”

photo credit: Marika Kochiashvili