Nadia Latif
| Nadia Latif | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| 🏫 Education | University College London, RADA |
| 💼 Occupation | Director |
Nadia Latif is a British-Sudanese theatre producer and director.[1][2][3] Latif currently resides in the United Kingdom and is a British national.[1] Her directorial debut, The Man in My Basement, starring William Dafoe, was released in October 2025.[4]
She is mostly known for her work in theatre production, having worked with a number of British companies including the Almeida[5], Royal Shakespeare Company, National, Bush, Theatre503 and Arcol.[2][6]
Early life
Latif grew up in Khartoum and spent summers in London, attending theatre regularly, before her family moved to England when she was 14.[7] She has five siblings.[2]
Latif attended Unity High School in Khartoum and then Roedean School in England, completing her A Levels in 2002. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from University College London (UCL) in 2006. She completed a Graduate Certificate in directing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 2007.[8]
Career
Latif has worked extensively in live theatre around the UK. Her motivation for becoming a director was driven by an early interest in both writing and participating in school plays in Sudan. In 2018, she trained at Royal Academic of Dramatic Arts (RADA) under Bill Gaskill.[2] She recalls, as a child, being interested in the role of the teacher who directed school plays. Her interest was in the role of coordinating all components of the production.[2] Having worked across both theatre and film, Latif has acknowledged the differences between the two media, particularly how the director is expected to prepare the actors for being in a film role vs. on stage for multiple performances.[9]
She has been recognized in a number of film festivals for her directorial work, prior to her debut, receiving placement in the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab in 2020.[10] In 2019 Screen International listed Latif as one of its filmmaker "stars of tomorrow".[11][12] Her 2022 film They Heard Him Shout Allahu Akbar was shown as part of Film4's Foresight Shorts series.[13][14][15] In 2015, the National Youth Theatre cancelled the production of an original play, Homegrown, she was set to direct. The play was cancelled due to the sensitive topic, and police were called to investigate the script.[16][17][18][19]
Latif has worked on TV series as well as short and long film productions. She was a director on Foresight in 2021, and directed the short film, White Girl in 2019.[15] During that time, she was also the Associate Director of the Young Vic Theatre, notably directing Jackie Sibblies-Drury's Pulitzer Prize winning play Fairview there.[20][21][22][23] Concurrent with her role as Associate Director, she was appointed the Genesis Fellow from the Genesis Foundation in 2018.[24][25]
Latif's projects, including The Man in My Basement, thematically discuss blackness and the perception or histories of black and brown individuals in western society. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, she and her colleagues on the film discuss the themes of racism, history and identity present in the film.[26] She has also written extensively about race, gender and popular culture,[27] contributing to the The Guardian from 2016 to 2017.[28] She also speaks publicly on the issues of racism and historical violence.[29] Given her thematic focus on both personal and historical identities, in a 2025 interview, she stated:
"I feel like my work is hopefully trying to always just be disruptive, to disrupt how people understand themselves and the world around them."[30]
Personal life
Latif currently lives in Hackney, London.[3] She speaks conversational Arabic.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Nadia Latif personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 2025-10-16.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Interview with Nadia Latif, Sue Dunderdale (2021), Directing the Decades, Routledge. PDF Accessible: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3-euw1-ap-pe-ws4-cws-documents.ri-prod/9780367686550/Nadia%20Latif%2C%20freelance%20director%2C%20writer.pdf Full citation: Dunderdale, S. (2021). Directing the Decades: Lessons from Fifty Years of Becoming a Director (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003138440
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ivey, Prudence (2022-04-20). "Director Nadia Latif's guide to her diverse community of Eastenders". The Standard. Retrieved 2025-10-17.
- ↑ Leigh, Danny (11 Sept 2025). "The Man in My Basement film review — Willem Dafoe leads eerie exploration of what lies beneath". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2025-10-19. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ↑ "Under the Shadow". Almeida Theatre. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "Slade School of Fine Art - Nadia Latif". Slade School of Fine Art. Archived from the original on 30 September 2023. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Fishwick, Samuel (18 January 2019). "The Young Vic's Nadia Latif says being selective is how to keep up with London's culture". The Standard. Retrieved 18 October 2025.
- ↑ "Nadia Latif" (PDF). Retrieved 18 October 2025 – via Squarespace.
- ↑ Tajipour, Sean (2025-09-12). "Corey Hawkins, Anna Diop, and Director Nadia Latif Talk The Man in My Basement – INTERVIEW". Nerdtropolis - Movie News, Reviews, Interviews, and Trailers. Retrieved 2025-10-17.
- ↑ Ward, Ben (2019-12-17). "Sundance Institute Names 2020 January Screenwriters Lab Fellows - sundance.org". Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "Screen unveils Stars of Tomorrow 2019". Screen. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
- ↑ Grater, Tom. "Stars of Tomorrow 2019: Nadia Latif (director)". Screen. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
- ↑ Gyamfi, Akua (27 April 2022). "Nadia Latif Director of 'They Heard Him Shout Allahu Akbar'". The British Blacklist. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "They Heard Him Shout Allahu Akbar". Film4 Foresight Shorts. 2022. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 "THEY HEARD HIM SHOUT ALLAHU AKBAR". www.channel4.com. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (2015-08-04). "Controversial Isis-related play cancelled two weeks before opening night". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "Homegrown director: 'My play didn't have an 'extremist' agenda' so why was it shut down?". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Morey, P. (2023). Tormented visibility: Extremism, stigma, and staging resistance in Omar El-Khairy and Nadia Latif’s Homegrown. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 59(3), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2023.2216998
- ↑ "Homegrown: NYT scrapped play over 'extremist agenda'". BBC News. 2015-09-04. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "Sunday Hot Spot: Nadia Latif". BFI Future Film Festival 2025. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
- ↑ Minamore, Bridget (2019-12-04). "Fairview: the Pulitzer winner whose creator hopes it has a short shelf life". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Fabrique. "Winners announced at the Black British Theatre Awards — RADA". www.rada.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "Fairview: Will Gompertz reviews the Pulitzer Prize-winning play at London's Young Vic ★★★★☆". 2019-12-07. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Burman, Cecile (2018-01-23). "Writer and Director Nadia Latif is named Genesis Fellow at the Young Vic". Genesis Foundation. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Wild, Stephi. "Nadia Latif Named Young Vic Genesis Fellow". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "Willem Dafoe and Nadia Latif on how history is written in 'Man in My Basement'". Los Angeles Times. 2025-09-05. Retrieved 2025-10-17.
- ↑ "Nadia Latif: "You Don't See Colour? That Must Be Nice For You, Karen!"". A Younger Theatre. 2020-06-30. Retrieved 2025-10-17.
- ↑ "Nadia Latif". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ "British Theatre and the Assault on Gaza". Birkbeck, University of London. 2025-05-07. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
- ↑ Cormack, Morgan. "The Man in My Basement's Nadia Latif is okay with 'viewers disagreeing'". www.radiotimes.com. Retrieved 2025-10-17.
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