Mounia AKL

Mounia Akl, born in 1989 in Beirut, is a Lebanese director and screenwriter renowned for her poetic and socially engaged cinema. After studying architecture, she trained in filmmaking at Columbia University in New York. Her short film Submarine (Cannes and TIFF 2016) already tackled Lebanon’s waste crisis, a theme she further explored in her debut feature Costa Brava, Lebanon (Venice Film Festival, LFF, TIFF 2021). The film received international acclaim for its intimate and political portrayal of a family grappling with the failures of Lebanese society.

In 2021, she directed episodes of the show Boiling Point, created by Phil Barantini and starring Stephen Graham; in 2022, she directed episodes of the British series The Responder, starring Martin Freeman, showcased in the International Panorama section; and in 2025, she directed several episodes of the historical saga House of Guinness for Netflix. She is currently in development for her next feature film and in post-production on It Gets Worse, a show she directed that was created and written by Leo Reich and produced by A24. As an actress, and for the first time, she appears in the 2026 film Un Monde fragile et merveilleux, directed by Cyril Aris. Her work, often centered on themes of resistance and freedom, reflects the challenges of a Lebanon in crisis while resonating with a global audience.