Who’s Who: Fatima Albanawi, Saudi actress, producer and filmmaker

Fatima Albanawi

Fatima Albanawi is an actress, producer, and filmmaker, who has performed in several drama, horror, romance and comedy productions.
Albanawi completed her undergraduate degree at Effat University in psychology in 2011, and received her master’s degree from Harvard University in theological studies in 2015.
In 2016, Albanawi was recognized for her role in the award-winning feature film “Barakah Meets Barakah.” The film won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin International Film Festival, and was also the Saudi Arabian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.
She has also played a Parisian actress from the seventies in the feature film “Roll’em,” a selfish theater superstar in the “Bashar” series, and appeared in the Netflix series “Paranormal.”
Albanawi has traveled to multiple countries and performed around the world including in Buenos Aires and at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Early on in her career, Albanawi founded “The Other Story” project. This is a book with the raw and unedited stories of Jeddah’s residents and visitors.
The actress had earlier served as a consultant at the Islamic Development Bank for six months, where she worked on developing a policy for the empowerment of women at the bank and its member countries. In 2018, Albanawi was selected as one of Time Magazine’s Young Generation Leaders, a series about the young people impacting the world. She was selected for her work in sharing the stories of people in Saudi society.
In the same year, she narrated and performed in a short film titled “A Blink of an Eye,” which shared the stories of “five normal lives that have changed or would change in a blink of an eye.”
In 2020, she wrote and directed her first short film “Until We See Light,” which became part of the feature “Becoming” in collaboration with the Red Sea International Film Festival.
Albanawi also co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the “Al-Shak” serial drama, a Shahid.net original. The storyline was shot completely from home during the global pandemic.
In 2021, Albanawi starred in the Egyptian thriller series “60 Minutes,” which premiered on Shahid.net, recording the highest viewership in Egypt.