Tala
Arakji

Tala is a Lebanese-American born and raised in Saudi Arabia and currently based in Dubai. As an adult, Tala spent a big portion of her life in Lebanon where she attended the American University of Beirut and studied Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. Soon after graduation, she went on to chase her passion in filmmaking and moved to New York where she attended New York Film Academy. After moving back to Lebanon, Tala worked in both production and postproduction on short content series and ads. She then moved into advertising where she quickly rose in the industry to become a highly awarded strategist at a young age.

Even though Tala found success in advertising, her true passion remained in screenwriting. While working in advertising, Tala continued to seek more education by training at FADE IN: Beirut in 2016 and was mentored by Nadia Tabbara in 2019. It is there that she wrote countless screenplays for film and TV. She later attended several workshops with the Middle East Media Initiative (MEMi) in 2019 and 2020, led by veteran television writers and writing instructors from University of Southern California. Soon after, one of her TV series was selected for the summer MeMi residency in 2021 but it was her debut TV series “Lou Lou” that was received so well it found success early on in the development phase with a grant from the MENA Media Fund. “Lou Lou” has also been selected at the 2023 Conecta Fiction and Entertainment event.