Born in Jordan, raised in Ohio, and based in Los Angeles, Amin Matalqa has directed three distinct feature films since receiving his MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute in 2007. His first feature as writer/director/producer, Captain Abu Raed, won the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Audience Award in 2008 along with 27 international festival prizes, and became Jordan's first entry to the Oscars for Best Foreign Film. His second film, the inspirational soccer drama, The United, became Walt Disney International's first venture into the Middle East and the first time that a major American studio produces a film for the region. Amin just competed post production on his American comedy Strangely In Love, a modern-day Los Angeles set adaption of the 1848 novella, White Nights. Amin lives in Hollywood with his wife Claire and their giant dogs Cello & Oboe.

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Sundance-winning writer/director Amin Matalqa has made a career combining drama and comedy to bridge the cultural gaps between East and West. His first feature film Captain Abu Raed won the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Audience Award in 2008 along with 27 international festival prizes, and became Jordan's first Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2011, he directed the inspirational soccer drama The United for Walt Disney Studios. This was the first time that a major Hollywood studio produces a film for the Arab world. Amin's third film, Strangely In Love, a Los Angeles-set comedy adaptation of Dostoevsky's classic novella, White Nights, premiers at the Heartland Film Festival in Oct. 2014.

Amin has an MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute (2007). He grew up in a family of pilots, and immigrated from Jordan to the US when he was 13. He received his undergraduate Business business from Ohio State University and had a successful career in IT before deciding to start over and pursue his childhood dream of filmmaking. In 2003 he moved to Los Angeles with his dogs Cello and Oboe, where he continues to live today with his wife Claire. Most recently, Amin has been selected by Disney/ABC's Talent Development Program where he will direct episodic TV while continuing to develop a slate of feature films to shoot in 2015.

Source:
http://cinema.usc.edu/events/event.cfm?id=13726
http://aminmatalqa.com/bio.html