Mai Almasri

Mai Masri (; born April 2, 1959) is a Palestinian filmmaker, director and producer. Her films are primarily documentaries which focus on the real life struggles of the women and children living in the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon. She has received over 60 international awards for her films and is hailed as a pioneer in the Middle Eastern film industry.

Early life Masri was born in Amman, Jordan on April 2, 1959. She is the daughter of Munib Masri from Nablus and an American mother from Texas. She spent her early childhood in Amman and Nablus moving to Beirut when she was in the first grade.

Personal life and career In 1977 while visiting Beirut on her summer break from college, Masri met her husband, the late Lebanese filmmaker Jean Chamoun (1942-2017). The pair connected through their shared love of film making and its ability to influence people’s lives. Masri then went back to San Francisco to finish her degree and returned to Beirut in 1981.

After their first film, Under the Rubble (1983), Masri and Chamoun bought their own equipment allowing them to produce low budget films on their own terms. They lived in Paris for a year to network outside of the Arab film industry, in order to be able to produce and distribute films abroad. The pair received their big break when the BBC commissioned War Generation for their Inside Story.

Under the Rubble (1983) Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon (1986) War Generation (1989) Children of Fire (1990) Suspended Dreams (1992) Hanan Ashrawi: A Woman of Her Time (1995) Children of Shatila (1998) Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (2001) Beirut Diaries (2006) 33 Days (2007) 3000 Nights (2015), she received an honorary award at the Esenler Film Festival. Beirut: Eye of the Storm (2021)

Article Masri, Mai. (January 2008) "Transcending Boundaries", This Week in Palestine.