Life
Mehreen grew up around Pakistan's show business. Her father, Javed Jabbar has been a filmmaker, and a very successful ad man apart from a senator and a cabinet minister. After receiving a B.A. from St. Joseph's College in Karachi, Mehreen went abroad to the USA in order to study film and completed a two-year program at University of California Los Angeles in 1993, with a Film, Television and Video certificate, and returned to Pakistan to direct and produced drama series/serials under the banner of TasVeer Productions, almost all of which were critically acclaimed by the Pakistani press.
Jabbar directed her first play 1994, called Nivala, which was an adaptation of Ismat Chughtai's short story. But the play never made it to the television screens, having been refused by state-run television channel PTV on the grounds that it was an Indian writer's work. It was a setback for Mehreen but she continued working for television and since then has made several award winning telefilms and TV series for numerous TV channels in Pakistan, in addition to a number of short films which have aired in festivals worldwide.
Ramchand Pakistani is her first feature-length film, which was released in Pakistan, India and the UK to wide critical and audience acclaim. The film premiered in the competition section of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in 2008. It won the FIPRESCI PRIZE from the International Federation of Film Critics and received Honourable Mention by the 13th Annual Satyajit Ray Awards at the London Film Festival, 2008 as well as the Audience award at the Fribourg International Film Festival. The film recently had a week long screening at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York.
Mehreen has been a member of the Central Board of Film Censors in Karachi, a founding member of WAR (War Against Rape), the Kara Film Festival in Karachi, and has also served as a juror at the Leeds International Film Festival. Recently she was the Artistic Director and Directing Mentor at the Maisha Film Lab in Uganda, a non profit film lab founded by director Mira Nair. Mehreen currently resides in New York City .
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