“A Young Nation” was funded, filmed, edited and produced by Hannah Gaber as her thesis project to complete dual MAs in Journalism and Middle Eastern and North African Studies. As part of her efforts to fund the film, she was awarded a statewide competitive Arizona Press Club Scholarship, and was recognized as part of a Broadcast Education Association Mark of Excellence award for Mixed Video in 2015 for her part as co-producer in the short documentary "Opening Oman," which she contributed video and editing to after her first visit to the country in 2013-14. For “A Young Nation,” Hannah lived for six months in Oman, initially studying Arabic for ten weeks, before renting a room in a family home and living, driving, and filming all over the country. To execute the project, a letter of permission was required from the Ministry of Information. A local resident helped her to obtain this before leaving the United States, and working her connections with the University of Arizona, and relationships she made while previously in Oman, Hannah enlisted the help of guides, translators, fixers and friends. These people, many of whom you can find on the Travel page, were indispensable, especially in the arduous task of translating and subtitling the interviews in the thick Omani dialect of Arabic. Hannah returned to the U.S. to begin editing at the end of 2015. After many rounds of review with her thesis committee, it was successfully submitted to complete her degrees in May of 2016. The film was accepted to the Global Cinema Film Festival of Boston in 2017, and given the Award of Merit from the IndieFest Film Awards international film competition, accepted to the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) film festival, the Red Rocks Film Festival, and aired on UNC Charlotte TV in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2016.