Her first 8mm work was a film called Sweet Sixteen (1996) and it was immediately followed by The Will released in 2003. After this she experimented with documentary style work. Her works include 3adi.com (1998), followed by two narratives, Cockroach (2004) and The Loss (2005). She wrote and directed her first commissioned short film, Arabana with the support of Unicef in the year 2006, which premiered at DIFF 2007. She was awarded the title of Best Emirati Filmmaker the same year. She also wrote and directed three more short films, Once in 2009, Malal in 2010 and The Neighbor in 2013. She received the Muhr Emirati Award at DIFF 2010 for Malal and got the Best Emirati Film award at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Film Festival for The Neighbour.
She has been heralded as one of the top 50 most powerful personalities in the Arab Cinema and 100 most powerful Arabs under 40 by Arabian Business. Nayla also tops this off by being the brand ambassador for Canon Middle East since 2011 and is currently involved with her first feature film, Animal.
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