Najla Zaidi is a director and screenwriter, who has earned an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and is an alumna of AFI’s prestigious Directing Workshop for Women. Najla has written and directed PSAs, short films, music videos, and a feature-length documentary with Peter DiStefano (Porno for Pyros and Jane’s Addiction) which have domestic and international distribution. In addition, she has acted in, written and co-produced plays, sitcoms, and variety shows for both domestic and South Asian networks as well as serving as Jury Chair twice at the Temecula International Film and Music Festival. Najla Zaidi was born in Pakistan and raised in Kansas. She was put into preschool, so she could learn English but that’s not how she learned. She learned from watching television. Najla was so fascinated by it, that she grew up wishing to become a part of the process. Although all Pakistani parents want their children to become physicians, to her parent’s chagrin and her great joy, Najla was waitlisted for medical school and went to film school instead. She has grown up smack in the middle of two cultures and knows firsthand the comedy and tragedy of living with your feet in two boats so to speak. Directing and writing for film and television is Najla’s passion and the only thing she has ever wanted to do. It was the dream of the three-year-old and it is the reality of the woman today.