About

Fatima Ezzahra Mahdar is a Moroccan neurodivergent creative producer and storyteller based in Casablanca. She develops and produces original animated projects and works on adapting books for global audiences.

She is drawn to anti-hero narratives, particularly stories that reframe characters traditionally positioned as villains and explore the human perspective behind them. Her creative sensibility leans toward fantasy, horror, and darker, genre-blending worlds, always anchored in emotional depth and character complexity. She is especially inspired by works such as Nimona, and by stories that give space to misunderstood or marginalized voices. As a neurodivergent creator herself, she is interested in narratives that reveal the humanity within characters who are often written as "other."

Fatima graduated from ISCAE in 2015 with a degree in Audit and Management Control, a path that never felt aligned with her creative instincts. After several years working in corporate roles, the pandemic marked a turning point. In 2020, she made a decisive shift toward storytelling and animation, following what began as a single outreach email to a Disney showrunner mentor, a moment that opened the door to her creative career.

Since then, she has secured shopping agreements for multiple book-to-screen adaptations, including The Secret of the Ravens (HarperCollins) and Zara's Rules (Simon & Schuster). She has pitched projects to studios and companies including Netflix, Disney, Sony Pictures Animation, DreamWorks Animation, WildBrain, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Annapurna, BBC, FredFilms, LAIKA, Atomic Cartoons, Nelvana, and Lion Forge Entertainment. She is an active member of Women in Animation and the Children's Media Association.

She is currently co-developing Aïsha Qandicha, an original animated feature set in a cyberpunk Casablanca of 2100. The project is being developed with her creative partner Alyssa Harden, whose credits include The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Trolls Band Together, The Bad Guys 2, Wildwood, and Blippi & Meekah. Director Kris Pearn (The Willoughbys, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2) is attached as Executive Producer. The project was selected for Durban FilmMart 2025 and received the Triggerfish Mentorship Award.

Before entering the animation industry, Fatima also spent time living in Nanjing during an exchange program at Nanjing Audit University. That experience deepened her connection to Chinese culture and to stories like Mulan, which remain a personal reference point in her creative imagination. She often describes China as her second home.

Fatima speaks French and lives in Casablanca, where she spends her time drinking Moroccan tea, watching animation, and listening to classical music, with Frédéric Chopin among her favorites.

Her favorite quote comes from Walt Disney: "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."