Cherien Dabis (born November 27, 1976) is a Palestinian-American director, producer, and screenwriter. Her father is Palestinian and her mother is Jordanian. She spent many of her childhood summers in Jordan. Following a series of racist and Islamophobic incidents against her family when she was 14 years old, Dabis began wanting to change the way in which Arabs were portrayed in Western media. She went on to receive her B.A. with honors in creative writing and communications from the University of Cincinnati and her M.F.A. in film from Columbia University School of the Arts. She began her career as a writer with the television series The L Word from 2006 to 2008.
Dabis's first short film, Make a Wish, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and received awards at the Aspen Shortsfest, the Cairo International Film Festival for Children, the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.
She made her feature film debut with Amreeka, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and opened to critical praise at other notable venues. Her second feature film, May in the Summer, screened at Sundance's opening night in 2013.
Dabis's films are somewhat autobiographical, as she aims to represent the unique perspective of being raised between the Middle East and the American Midwest. Her films take on themes of immigration, discrimination, cultural assimilation, and family.
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