Hello and welcome to my page!
My name is Merel Marjieh and I was born and raised in the holy land of Nazareth.
Ever since I was a little girl, I've had a passion for filmmaking. As a kid, I would go with my dad and older brother to rent movies from the video store across the street from my house. As I got a little older, my parents started taking us to the movie theaters. There were no theaters in my hometown, so every time we wanted to check out a new movie, we'd plan a trip and usually go on Sunday afternoons.
Watching movies left me pondering, "How was this movie made?" is a question I'd ask myself every time. "How did they put this together?" emphasizing the editing, "They're geniuses," I thought.
When I got access to the world of YouTube, I started watching behind-the-scenes videos of every movie I liked and I fell in love. I was mesmerized with the worlds created and the stories being told and I wanted to become a part of that world.
At first, my brother and I shared a computer and he'd usually share with me everything he found interesting, and he was my introduction to editing software! As soon as I got my hands on my computer, I would teach myself, with the help of many many YouTube tutorials on "How to:" edit.
Every now and then, I'd rewatch my favorite movies. We had cabinets of movies in the form of VHS tapes! And as I got older, I got more and more involved in that world. And whenever people ask me "What do you want to study when you're older?" My answer was always a paraphrase of "Something in the arts."
Pursuing film in the culture I grew up in wasn't the norm. Anything outside the science field was to some people wrong, fortunately, not to my family and especially not to my parents. I'm forever grateful to have always had their support. I grew up in a musical film and I played the piano from the age of 5 to the age of 18. Music had a great influence on me and to this day, if I go a day without listening to at least one song, it'd be a bad day.
During my senior year in high school, I did more research on the filmmaking field and where I could pursue it. And this is when I landed on the New York Film Academy page. Scrolling the website of a film school felt like a child going to Disney Land. This was when I had a plan to graduate, save money, and go to New York and try out a workshop. I ended up enrolling in the 1-Week Filmmaking Workshop, and it was the best week of my life! In the most basic form, the equation to my happiness equaled filmmaking.
Coming soon
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