Leila Kanaan - Zeina magazine cover
Leila Kanaan - Gulf air magazine
LEILA KANAAN,
MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR THE PACKAGER OF POP STARS IS READY TO MAKE HER OWN MARK WORDS
BY Eddie Taylor
PICTURE BY Sandra Chidiac
From Gulf Air In flight magazine - May 2010
"She has turned emerging singers into superstars, added new dimensions to established icons and almost single-handedly elevated the Middle Eastern music video to an art form.
Leila Kanaan, the director from Sidon in southern Lebanon, is now almost as big as the stars she works with. Nancy Ajram has sought out her services three times in the past ten months. “I’m very happy dealing with A-class singers and big budgets,” laughs the girl, whose petite frame and soulful eyes could equally well have found a home on the other side of the camera.
“I’ve reached a point where artists trust me and give me complete liberty. It’s like a lab: I try new things.”
And in that lab, she creates the personalities that music fans associate with the region’s biggest stars. Yara was a girl-next-door until Kanaan got her hands on her, transforming the 26-year-old into a sultry seductress.
Leila also pushed Haifa Wehbe and Myriam Fares into becoming Madonna-style provocateurs. “I used to have to fight hard for my ideas in the early days,” she says. “Now it’s very much ‘take it or leave it’.”
Always experimental, Kanaan worked with Lebanese fashion designer Nicolas Jebran to create a classical look for Haifa Wehbe’s Ma t’oulch lhad. On screen, the dancers dressed in outfits reminiscent of 1920s pin-up girls and ballet stars. “Modern times don’t make me dream,” she says. “There’s true nostalgia in what I do.” But she admits she may eventually tire of the music industry, “It’s very challenging for me to create a different world within my style every time, especially when the music is more or less repetitive.” So she is branching out.
With two short films and a television advert already completed, Kanaan is moving into cinema. Her debut feature is in the pipeline, although she is remaining tight-lipped, saying no more than she is “working on it”.
It seems Kanaan’s visual journey is only just beginning. “I like to travel in my work and take the viewer along with me,” she says. And we remain only too happy to hitch along for the ride. "
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