Lamis Ammar

Lamis Ammar (; born 1992) is a Palestinian actress, writer, and video artist. She gained recognition for her lead role in the film Sand Storm, which received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Life and career Ammar was born in Acre in 1992 into a Palestinian family originating from Acre and Al-Tira. When she was four, her family moved to the lower city of Haifa. She studied theater and acting at the University of Haifa and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Initially, she wanted to be a clown, but chose acting as a major, as this was the closest to clowning at university she could find. She had worked as a clown at an amusement park during high school. During her studies, she worked in a puppet theater for children to earn money.

During her studies, she also started acting in films. In 2016, she acted in the lead role of feature film Sand Storm. The film won a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival. When she spoke out publicly about Palestinian victims of the Gaza genocide, she received death threats and several Israeli newspapers defamed her. Her play Mein bedrohliches Gedicht, set to premiere at Volksbühne in Berlin in November 2023, was postponed and only taken up again in 2024. She criticized the repression of free speech around Palestine in Germany.

She is fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, English, and German.

Filmography Sand Storm (2016) (TV series, 2017) (2018) Between Heaven and Earth (2019) Beit Berl (2019) Silence of the Desert (2021) Irene and Steve (2022) Desert Warrior (2025)