Sami Issa Mustaklem is a Palestinian-American director, writer, producer, and editor with more than a decade of experience creating national advertising campaigns, branded content, music videos, and narrative cinema. A recent Sundance Episodic Lab finalist, Sami was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana by a Palestinian immigrant and American woman who met working at a restaurant, Mom as a waitress, and Dad as a dishwasher. His love of cinema comes from experiencing the way my father first fell in love with the US: through movies.