Mohamad Yassine is a Lebanese filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor based in Beirut. He wrote and directed four short films: exitbag (2016), which premiered at the French Cultural Center in Beirut; Sahar (2017), selected at Maskoon Film Festival; Crave (2019) for Gandour; and Meet the Artist (2024) for Art Basel Paris. He created and developed Beirut Vice, a series for MBC Group, and co-created and co-wrote Dream Plaza, produced by Arte France, La Onda Productions, and Abbout, currently in preproduction. He is also co-writing Running with Beats, a feature film with Leila Basma produced by Natalia Pavlove and Zeinab Badran. As assistant director, he has worked on over 30 commercials and short films, and three international features including Valley of Exile, Mother Valley, and Lueur Grise. He is developing his debut feature, Zeinab
PROJECT
Zeinab
Seventeen year old Zeinab, a devout muslim, is bullied and othered by students at her catholic school, especially after she starts wearing a hijab. Her enrollment is even threatened by the Mother Superior, had she not been poised to receive a prestigious scholarship. When her class takes a trip to Saint Rafqa’s monastery to visit the saint’s grave and learn her story, Zeinab consumes the soil of the grave, said to perform miracles and makes a wish. She then has a biblical apparition that leaves her in a crisis of faith. She begins to experience symptoms of stigmata, exactly as they happened to Saint Rafqa before her. But when Zeinab performs a miracle in front of the entire school, she begins to gain the respect and admiration of her peers and nun superiors, who become convinced she is a chosen saint. Soon, she begins to believe it too. But her escalating deterioration jeopardises her academic future, her family falls apart fearing she’s psychotic as they try to find medical explanations and her new belonging puts her devotion to islam to the test. Yet Zeinab clings on to the only time she’s ever felt seen. Even if it comes at the cost of her own life.
