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Nader's Girl

A lonely international student creates an imaginary girlfriend to impress his roommates – then struggles to let her go.

Based on a short story by Saeed Teebi, Nader's Girl follows Nader (Anas Hasan), a Palestinian international student looking for friendship in a new country. Hoping to fit in with his exploitative roommates, Nader invents a girlfriend named "Cynthia" (Megan Tracz), who gradually becomes a warped projection of Nader’s insecurities as a foreigner. As fantasy and reality blur, he must decide whether to end the illusion or keep clinging to the only 'person' who values him.

  • Omar Mouallem
    Director
    The Lebanese Burger Mafia, Making Kayfabe
  • Omar Mouallem
    Writer
    The Lebanese Burger Mafia, Making Kayfabe
  • Saeed Teebi
    Writer
    Her First Palestinian: and Other Stories
  • Omar Mouallem
    Producer
    The Lebanese Burger Mafia, Making Kayfabe
  • Mazen Mahfouz
    Producer
    India Rising, Nike: The Goddess of Victory
  • Moh Mahfouz
    Producer
    India Rising, Nike: The Goddess of Victory
  • Saeed Teebi
    Producer
  • Anas Hasan
    Key Cast
    "Nader"
    Everything Puppies, Yes, Chef! Christmas, Reel 2
  • Megan Tracz
    Key Cast
    "Cynthia"
    Spiral, Heartland, Engaged by Christmas
  • Steven Kirk Miller
    Key Cast
    "Jeff"
  • Zachary Dean Friesen
    Key Cast
    "Harv"
  • Issa Shah
    Cinematographer
    Queen Tut" (2022Queen Tut, Strangers In A Room), highlighting Toronto's underground queer nightlife, and "Strangers In A Room"
  • Leen Issa
    Editor
    Deuteronomy, Rupture, VICE Arabia
  • Etta George House
    Production Designer
    Making Room, Secret Time, Before I Change My Mind
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Comedy, Fantasy, Literary Adaptation
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes 56 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    51,000 CAD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.66:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Omar Mouallem

Omar Mouallem is an author, filmmaker and lead producer of Haq Story Studios + School. His feature-length debut, THE LEBANESE BURGER MAFIA (Paramount+), a first-person documentary about the unlikely link between a fast-food chain and Lebanon's civil war, premiered at Hot Docs 2023 and won Audience Choice at NorthwestFest, as well as Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the Silk Road Film Festival. He has directed three CBC documentaries, including DIGGING IN THE DIRT, an investigation into suicides in the oil and gas industry, and MAKING KAYFABE, an absurdist biographical comedy about his brief stint as a pro wrestler. Omar also wrote How Muslims Shaped the Americas, named one of The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 books of the year, and has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and many others.

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Director Statement

NADER’S GIRL is adapted from Saeed Teebi’s short story “Cynthia,” from his award-winning book Her First Palestinian. Like much of Teebi’s work, it balances biting humour with melancholy, realism with absurdity. The result is a funny, yet painful and disturbing, portrait of identity, masculinity, and the lies we tell to belong.

What drew me to the story was how quickly I recognized Nader as a type of young man who performs misogyny for the validation of his peers. His foreignness adds another layer of self-consciousness. At its heart, NADER’S GIRL is a dark comedy about assimilation — not just the kind forced by a dominant culture, but the quieter, more insidious kind we impose on ourselves. It’s about masculinity as performance, identity as projection, and the shame that lives in the gap between who we are and who we think we should be.

Though the screenplay stays faithful to the source material, I’ve layered in some updates — with Teebi’s blessing — to reflect the current political moment. In the midst of the war on Gaza and the surge of campus activism, Nader now finds himself not just racially othered but symbolically exploited as a Palestinian on campus. His identity is misunderstood, fetishized, and patronized by a new wave of self-styled allies — activists more concerned with appearances than solidarity. He both resents this and welcomes the soft power it avails him.

This is my narrative directorial debut, but it builds on my documentary and literary work, which typically examines marginalized communities or subcultures with equal sincerity and comedy. I believe comedy is an essential tool to make difficult subject matter resonate with wider audiences, as it disarms them while making complicated themes digestible.