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Jehane Noujaim (, ) (born May 17, 1974) is an American documentary film director best known for her films Control Room, Startup.com, Pangea Day and The Square. She has co-directed The Great Hack and The Vow with Karim Amer.
In 1992, Noujaim matriculated to Harvard University, where she initially intended to study medicine. She later switched to visual arts and philosophy after taking an interest in photography and filmmaking, graduating magna cum laude in 1996.
In 2002, before her graduation, Noujaim was awarded the Gardiner fellowship under which she directed Mokattam, an Arabic film about a garbage-collecting village near Cairo in Egypt.
Noujaim joined the MTV news and documentary division as a segment producer for the documentary series UNfiltered.
In 2001, she left to produce and direct Startup.com under the guidance of documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker in association with Pennebaker Hegedus Films. The feature-length documentary won the DGA and IDA Awards for best documentary. From collaboration with Pennebaker and Hegedus throughout her career, Noujaim's filmmaking techniques take insight from cinéma verité. Noujaim was awarded the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award in 2004.
She has since worked in both the Middle East and the United States as a cinematographer on various documentaries including Born Rich, Only the Strong Survive, and Down from the Mountain.
In 2004, she directed the feature-length film Control Room, a documentary about US Central Command and its relations with Al Jazeera and other news organizations that covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The film showed the unfolding of war through the descriptions and contributions of entities in media outlets.Stamets, Bill. “Channeling Democracy: Control Room.” Senses of Cinema, October 2004. http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature-articles/control_room/ . It also displayed information on the impact of skewed information during the Iraq War from different media source's operations and public motives. Noujaim achieves this through live footage from her time in Qatar of the war as well as interviews from news room correspondents.Mackinlay, John. "Control Room: Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies." RUSI Journal 149, no. 4 (08, 2004): 72-73.
Through this project, Noujaim wanted to portray images of war and question how viewers perceive them. The mentioned creative approach led her to focus her filmmaking on viewer's bias grounded in individual characteristics such as cultural background. In a review for Control Room Bill Stamets felt that throughout this creative path, Noujaim who filmed the majority of Control Room herself, never poses her own opinion on the topic in the film's story or give insight on her personal perception of war. The neutral stream for the film gives little guidance to viewers, prioritizing their interpretation, an artistic choice on behalf of Noujaim. Box office records were broken by Control Room while being screened at Film Forum in New York.
The Square was nominated for an Academy Award in best documentary in January 2014 and is highlighted as the first Egyptian film to earn such credentials. The Square also won critical acclaim in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival & the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. She won the DGA Award for The Square in 2014.
Noujaim contributed to a book in 2016 which included a collection of statements by individuals on their experiences travelling to or visiting global squares. In the text, Noujaim disclosed her experiences and time spent in January 2011 at Tahrir Square. The given location in Cairo is commonly the site of chaos and protests which she expanded on.
Noujaim and Amer directed The Vow a documentary series revolving around NXIVM and its leader Keith Raniere, which premiered in August 2020 on HBO. The second and final season premiered in October 2022, with Noujaim primarily directing without Amer. Noujaim previously took a NXIVM course after being recruited by Sara Bronfman.
In 2022, Noujaim served as an executive producer on Flight/Risk directed by Amer and Omar Mullick for Amazon Studios. In 2023, Noujaim served as an executive producer on Defiant directed by Amer, focusing on diplomacy and disinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Noujaim is directing and executive producing alongside Vikram Gandhi, The Man Will Burn, a documentary series revolving around Burning Man.
| 2000 | Down from the Mountain | Cinematographer | ||
| 2001 | Startup.com | Also cinematographer, editor | ||
| 2002 | Only the Strong Survive | Cinematographer | ||
| 2004 | Control Room | Also cinematographer | ||
| 2006 | Encounter Point | |||
| 2009 | Budrus | |||
| 2012 | ||||
| 2013 | The Square | Also cinematographer | ||
| 2017 | The Breadwinner | |||
| 2019 | The Great Hack | |||
| 2022 | Flight/Risk | |||
| 2023 | Defiant | |||
| 2019 | Ramy | Episode: "Cairo Cowboy" | ||
| 2020 | The Vow | |||
| TBA | The Man Will Burn | |||
| +Awards !Year !Award | |
| 2001 | DGA Award for Best Documentary |
| 2001 | IDA Award for Best Documentary |
| 2004 | Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award |
| 2006 | TED Prize |
| 2014 | DGA Award |
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