Cherien Dabis

Cherien Dabis (born 1976) (شيرين دعيبس) is an American actress, director, producer, and screenwriter.

However, when the Gulf War commenced in 1990, things changed for her and her family.

Her father lost many of his patients, her mother was called an "Arab bitch", and her family began receiving death threats.

Although Dabis has no brothers, a rumor began that her father's "son" was fighting in Saddam Hussein's army.

It is also at this time that her family was investigated by the Secret Service because of a rumor that claimed her sister had threatened to kill George H. W. Bush, who was the president at the time.

It is following these incidents that Dabis claims she faced an identity crisis, wherein she became aware of the fact that she was an "Arab in America".

These events would go on to influence her desire to create films.

She was 14 years old when she realized that no one was accurately portraying the lives of Arabs in America.

She saw a great need to change the way in which Arabs were portrayed in the media.

Years later, she would take filmmaking at Columbia University, and make films that represent her experiences as an Arab American, with a goal of changing the negative stereotypes in the film industry that contributed to the racism she experienced.

Dabis received 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 in 2004.

Dabis defines herself as a humanist, and describes in her words, "after years spent working in Washington, D.C., I realized that I could reach more people and affect more change through fiction than politics."

She believes the medium is a powerful tool when discussing various issues.

She says that because she was raised between the Middle East and the Mid-West, she has a unique perspective, one that she wanted to represent in her films.

As a result, her films are somewhat autobiographical, and the influences drawn from her own personal life are quite evident.

And so, her films take on themes of immigration, discrimination, cultural assimilation, and family.

Her two first feature films complement one another, and as Dabis puts it, the two "complete a diptych".

Amreeka was about being Arab in America, and May in The Summer was about being American in the Middle East.

The two films represent the merging, and often clashing, of two separate worlds.

She was a writer with the television series, The L Word from 2006 to 2008.

Her first short film, Make a Wish, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and received awards at other festivals.

She was named one of Variety magazine's 10 Directors to Watch in 2009, and in 2010 received a United States Artists (USA) Fellowship.

In 2022, she was nominated for the Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series award for her work on the television series Only Murders in the Building.

In March 2022, Dabis was named Laureate for Cultural Excellence by the TAKREEM foundation, for her work on authentic Arab representation in Hollywood.

Dabis was born in Omaha, Nebraska.

Her father is a physician of Palestinian descent, and her mother is from Salt, Jordan.

She grew up in the small town of Celina, Ohio, and spent many of her summers in Jordan.

Dabis at 8 visited Palestine for the first time.

She and her family were held at the Israeli border for 12 hours, and she was strip-searched along with her sisters.

This incident would make her understand "what it meant to be Palestinian".

She would not return to Palestine until 20 years later.

Back in the US, Dabis' hometown was populated predominantly by middle-class families from German backgrounds.

Upon her return from trips to the Middle East, she would be asked if there were telephones and cars back in Jordan.

As a Palestinian American, Dabis refused to be seen as an outsider, and instead chose to assimilate to the culture she found herself within.

Dabis made her feature film debut with Amreeka which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

The film also opened to critical praise other important venues.

The DVD for Amreeka was released on January 12, 2010 with Make a Wish.

Dabis' second feature film May in the Summer screened at the opening night of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Dabis has two upcoming projects.

One will reportedly not tie into her middle-eastern roots and will be a comedy of sorts.