Annemarie Jacir

Annemarie Jacir was born in Bethlehem in 1974 and grew up between Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, where she earned a master’s degree in film. Her 2003 short like twenty impossibles was the first Arab short film selected for the official programme of the Cannes Film Festival. Determined to build an independent cinema rather than wait for one, she founded Philistine Films, a production company dedicated to new Arab voices, co-founded the Dreams of a Nation project for the promotion of Palestinian cinema, and later helped establish Dar Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem.

Her four feature films have each been Palestine’s entry for the Academy Award for international feature. Salt of This Sea (2008), the first feature film directed by a Palestinian woman, premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and won the FIPRESCI critics’ prize. When I Saw You (2012), set among Palestinian refugees and fighters in Jordan after 1967, won Best Asian Film at the Berlinale. Wajib (2017), a wry father-and-son drive through Nazareth, gathered more than thirty awards. Palestine 36 (2025), an ensemble epic of the 1936–39 revolt against British rule, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Selected works

• Salt of This Sea (2008)
• When I Saw You (2012)
• Wajib (2017)
• Palestine 36 (2025)

Sources

• Philistine Films — official website
• Palestinian Cinema — Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question