Annemarie Jacir has been working in independent film since 1994 and has written, directed and produced a number of films including ‘a post oslo history’ (1998), ‘The Satellite Shooters’ (2001) and ‘like twenty impossibles’ (2003). She has taught courses at Columbia, Bethlehem, and Birzeit University. She also works as a freelance editor and cinematographer.

‘Salt of this Sea’ (2008) is her first feature film, and her second work to debut at Cannes Film Festival. Having been banned from returning to Palestine, she now lives in Amman, Jordan.

Annemarie Jacir was named one of Filmmaker magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema in 2004. Her short film, like twenty impossibles was the first Palestinian short film to be an official selection of the Cannes International Film Festival (Cinefondation), went on to be a Student Academy Awards Finalist, and won over 15 awards at International festivals including Best Film at the Palm Springs Short Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Institute Du Monde Arabe Biennale, Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival, and IFP/New York.

Jacir lived in Saudi Arabia until the age of sixteen and then received her formal education in the United States. She worked in the film industry in Los Angeles before deciding to focus on writing and directing, moving to New York to obtain a Masters degree in Film from Columbia University. There received the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's (ADC) Jack Shaheen Scholarship Award in 2001. She is also a recipient of a Jerome Foundation Media Arts grant, a New York State Council on the Arts distribution grant, the Paul Robeson Fund, and is winner of the Kathryn Parlan Screenwriting Award as well as a Zaki Gordan Award for Excellence in Screenwriting. Her feature script Salt of this Sea was selected for the Hubert Bals Development Fund in Rotterdam, the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in Utah, and was a Sopadin finalist for the Grande Prix du Meilleur Scenariste.

Jacir co-founded Philistine Films, an independent production company, focusing on productions related to the Arab world and Iran. Jacir shot and produced the documentary Until When (dir. Dahna Abourahme), an in-depth portrait of the lives of several families living in the Deheisha refugee camp as well as several other films. She collaborated with Algerian-French filmmaker Nassim Amouache on Quelques Miettes Pour Les Oiseaux, a documentary sketch of the lives of a handful of men and women eking out a living in the Jordanian town of Ruwayshed, a small-time oil-smuggling entrepot that's the last stop on the road to Iraq (Official Selection Venice International Film Festival, Best film Montpellier, Press prize Clermont Ferrand). Jacir also works as a freelance editor and cinematographer and film curator.

She is chief curator and co-founder of the groundbreaking Dreams of a Nation Palestinian cinema project, dedicated to the promotion of Palestinian cinema. In 2003, she organized and curated the largest traveling film festival in Palestine, which included the screening of archival Palestinian films from Revolution Cinema, screening for the first time on Palestinian soil. She has taught courses at Columbia University, Bethlehem University, and Birzeit University and in refugee camps in Palestine, Lebanon and currently in Jordan. Jacir is a board member of Alwan for the Arts, a cultural organization devoted to North African and Middle Eastern art. She has served as a jury member to the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival as well as Cinecolor Award, Argentina. She is a founding member of the Palestinian Filmmakers’ Collective, based in Palestine.

Jacir is also an active author and poet -- her poetry and stories have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, including Mizna, the Crab Orchard Review, The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, and most recently in the collection Poets for Palestine. She has read at numerous conferences, rallies and events, and has shared the stage with poets such as Amiri Baraka.


Selected Film Awards & Festivals

SALT OF THIS SEA

• World Premiere, Cannes Film Festival, Official Selection
• International Critics Award (FIPRESCI Prize) 2008, Osians
• Special Jury Prize, Osians Asian & Arab Film Festival
• Sopadin Finalist, Grand Prize Best Screenplay

LIKE TWENTY IMPOSSIBLES

• World Premiere, Cannes Film Festival, Official Selection
• National Finalist - Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Student Academy Awards
• Best Short Screenplay - Nantucket Film Festival
• Best Short Film - Palm Springs International Short Film Festival
• Best Short Film (Emerging Narrative) - IFP/New York
• Silver Plaque - Chicago International Film Festival
• Best Short Film - Institute Du Monde Arabe Biannual
• Best Screenwriting – Lenola Film Festival, Italy
• Best Short Film Second Prize – Lenola Film Festival, Italy
• Audience Choice Award - Polo Ralph Lauren Columbia University Fest.
• Special Jury Prize - Ramallah International Film Festival
• Best Short Film, Luis Trenker Award – 4Film Festival, Italy
• Locarno Film Festival, Official Selection
• Edinburgh International Film Festival, Official Selection
• Telluride Film Festival, Official Selection
• New York Film Festival, Official Selection
• Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Czech Republic
• Sarajevo Film Festival, Bosnia
• Carthage Film Festival (Journees Cin. de Carthage), Tunis
• Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival, France

A FEW CRUMBS FOR THE BIRDS

• Venice Film Festival , Sélection Officielle Corto Cortissimo
• Montpellier Film Festival , Best Film
• Clermont Ferrand Film Festival, Press Prize
• Cesar Award Official Selection for Best Short Film, 2007

Selected Filmography

Salt of this Sea (2008, 109’, Color, 35mm)
Sound of the Street (2006, 3 min, Color, DV)
An Explanation : (and then burn the ashes) (2005, 6 min, Color, 16mm)
A Few Crumbs for the Birds (2005, 26 min, Color, 35mm)
Until When (2004, 76 min, Color, DV)
like twenty impossibles (2003, 17 min, Color, 35mm)
Palestine is Waiting (2001, 10 min, Video)
The Satellite Shooters (2001, 16 min, Color, 16mm)
Two Hundred Years of American Ideology (2000, 12 min, Color, Video)
Chronicle of Civilized & Consequential Moments of Reconciliation (2000, 2 min, Video
A Revolutionary Tale (2000, 9 min, Color, Video)
A Post-Oslo History (1998, 8 min, Color, Video)
Interview (1994, 4 min. Color, Video)

Press and quotes