Producer / Director

Nizar Ghanem, the founder of Wiseguys Pictures was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1976. He graduated with a master’s degree in Cinema and Video Arts from USEK, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in 2001.

Throughout his university years, he managed to work with various famous local artists as a technician and assistant on live sets and in production houses. He attended the Actors Studio with the Modern school of Theater in Lebanon under the direction of Mounir Abou Debs for 3 years.

He then went on to land several jobs in local TV stations, producing and directing live TV shows and reality shows, up until 2005.

2005 was the year Nizar’s career took a sudden turn to the direction he always wanted to go towards;the artistic and creative side of the field.

In that year Nizar began his collaboration with Exit Film Productions; a collaboration that would last up till this day. They went on to produce a docuseries of 100 episodes, from which 20 were directed by Nizar for Al Jazeera TV from 2005 to 2009; a docuseries exploring and shedding light on cinema in the arab world.

Aside from his collaboration with Exit Film Productions, Nizar produced and directed several documentaries for Al Jazeera TV, the Sultanate of Oman and many more local and regional clients.

2009 is the year Wiseguys Pictures was created.

Even after opening his own production house, Nizar continued working also as a freelancer for many projects.

From 2010 to 2013, he was the production coordinator and first assistant director for the feature film Asfouri, an independent Lebanese film, directed by Fouad Alaywan and produced by Exit Film Productions.

In 2014, he directed a 48-minute documentary about the Lebanese diaspora in Africa. Produced by Witness for Art Productions, for Al Jazeera TV.

In that same year, Nizar co-wrote “Ayoub Beik” with Fouad Alaywan. “Ayoub Beik” is an adaptation of 2 theatre plays written originally by Nizar’s father, Elias Ghanem: “The Decision” (Al Karar) and “The Incubator” (Al Fakkassa).

In 2015, he took part in the short movie The Right Path as scriptwriter and main actor. Later that year, Nizar started teaching Scriptwriting, Documentary Making and Art of Film at LIU, Lebanese International University, Beirut.

In 2016, under Wiseguys Pictures, Nizar produced and directed a 10-minute industrial documentary on the full process of preparing the dough, cooking, baking, packaging of Elegance Stars products.

In 2017, under Wiseguys Pictures, he produced and directed “Lemon“, a music video for Bachar Mar Khalife and Yolla Khalife.
This project is a conceptual and contemporary animated music video.

Later in 2017, Nizar produced and directed 12 30-min episodes for Filmi TV program for Al Araby TV. The show talks about cinema in the Arab world. Each episode is a biography of the filmmaker interviewed.

In 2019, Nizar started a collaboration with Lebanese artist Bu Nasser al Touffar, writer of “AlQushnud”. Together they adapted the book for screen and rewrote it as a script for a feature film. The project is set to be launched in 2021.

In 2020, under Wiseguys Pictures, Nizar produced and directed On/Off music video session, by Bachar Mar Khalife. On/Off album is set to be released in October 2020; the music video session consists of 3 songs played back to back by Bachar. This project features a combination of live music recording and experimental video language.