“I learned that through films I could be able to create realities that are different from my reality, and worlds that are different from my world. That was my childhood, just me in front of the TV watching films."

“As a filmmaker, you feel like you have a mission, you want to do something for your country. We had a lot of doubts about what the film said, but now I know that it was my mission after all: This is my country, not the clichéd image that people have in their heads of a country at war.”

Nadine Labaki’s interest in the moving image began during the War in Lebanon - there was no school and so she spent many hours watching television.  Nadine Labaki studied media at Beirut’s St. Joseph University and in the early 90s won a talent prize in Paris for a music video.  She continued to make a succession of music videos, as well as performing in commercials, until she met the French producer Anne-Marie Toussaint in 2003.  The meeting led to her sponsorship by the Cannes Film Festival to develop a script - which became Caramel.