A Jordanian director and producer of Palestinian roots, Dina first graduated with a BA in Art and Graphic Design in 2003. And in 2013, Dina was granted the Docnomads scholarship program for Master Degree Documentary Filmmaking in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels. Post graduating, she followed her passion for filmmaking, and worked her way through diverse TV productions like Sesame Street, and film productions such as The Cut by Fatih Akin, and Inchallah by Anais Barbeau‐Lavalere. She then transitioned behind the camera, and began to independently direct and produce. Dina’s devotion for documenting is inspired by people who are seemingly ordinary, until you learn of their unsung circumstances, and by stories that spring from her homeland in Palestine. Her subjects are presented with poise and untainted perception, often touching on the veiled layers of certain communities and habitats. Her short documentary film ‘Shamieh’ (2011) portrays an aging Palestinian woman living in Zizya Refugee Camp – Jordan. Thereafter, she began investigating the lives of Syrian refugee children, which organically paved the way for her ‘Tiny Souls’ documentary film; first realized in a nine-minute format (2012), then developed as her first feature documentary (2019). Over the course of four years, Dina filmed the lives of ‘Tiny Souls’ characters as they unfolded inside Zaatari Camp – Jordan. In its earlier 9-minute stages, ‘Tiny Souls’ participated in film festivals such as the Euromed Audiovisual’s Made in MED Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice award, and the Jordanian European Film Festival, where it won Jury Award for Best Documentary Short, among others. Tiny Souls –the feature length documentary– was supported by Doha Film Institute (DFI), IDFA, the Arab Fund for Art and Culture (AFAC), Bertha Foundation, and the Royal Film Commission (RFC); the film was selected to attend the IDFA Summer School 2017 Rough-Cut, as well as Malmo Post-Production Platform 2016, where it received a Music Production Award, and JCC Takmil 2016, where it was awarded for Color Grading. Her award winning film ‘One Minute’ (2015) depicts a woman living in Gaza while it was under attack in 2014; it received the PerSo-Perugia Social Film Festival (Audience Award) and won Best Short Film Award in Nazra Film Festival. It also participated in many international film festivals, such as the 14th Festival of Mediterranean Short Film Tangier 2016, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2017, the Arab Film Festival Berlin, and the Cairo International Women’s Film Festival 2017. She also co-directed ‘Sea Wash’ (2016), a short experimental film, which pays tribute to refugees who lost their lives at sea, in search of a safer future. It was selected for the video art section in ZOOM-ZBLIŻENIA Film Festival in Poland, and it participated in “Europako Mugak/Fronteras de Europa”, “Borders of Europe” in Spain/Bilbao (2017), and in Shnit Film Festival, Cairo (2017).
