Nizar Wattad

BA (English Literature & Creative Writing), George Washington University

MPW (Screenwriting), University of Southern California

NIZAR WATTAD is an Arab-American screenwriter and producer, raised in East Tennessee. He sold an original series to Netflix Arabia in 2019, has a TV crime drama set up at Sky in the UK, and in 2020 optioned a horror feature screenplay to producer Bob Shaye (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Lord of the Rings).

Nizar earned a screenwriting Masters in 2006 from USC, where he began his ongoing collaboration with Golden Globe winner and two-time Oscar nominated director Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now, Omar, The Mountain Between Us).

Walt Disney Pictures recruited Nizar to write the first Arabic-language film ever produced by a major studio (The United, Touchstone 2012). He served as Head Writer and Executive Producer for Aya & Yusuf, an animated series targeted at Muslim children worldwide, in collaboration with Pocoyo director Alfonso Rodriguez.

Wattad’s work includes credited and uncredited feature film writing and consulting for companies including Fortunate Falls, New Line, Focus, Genre Films, Relativity Media & ART. He has developed TV pilots and pitches for producers at ABC, HBO, Netflix and Sony, developed a music documentary series for ImageNation, and once wrote a play for Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

Nizar also created a story for the iOS game Tribal Rivals, which debuted at #1 in the App Store in 2014, and collaborated on an interactive multimedia story installation with Detroit art collective Complex Movements.

Wattad’s work was chosen for the 2008 Sundance RAWI Lab, 2010 Dubai Film Connection, and 2016 Sundance Producers Summit. He has also taught screenwriting & performing arts for Elon University, produced the first ever compilation of Arab-American hip-hop, and hosted live performances, lectures & workshops around the world.