Mai Masri:

Cinematographer/DP
Mai Masri Palestinian Filmmaker

Born to a Palestinian father from Nablus and an American mother from Texas, Masri has carried this dual sense of identity and estrangement throughout her life. Being Palestinian, she was exposed to dispossession early in life. She lived near the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut and, as a child, she remembers her house shaking as Israeli jets bombed the camp. She grew up with a deep sense of injustice which forced her to ask questions like, who am I? Why don't I live in my own country? The sense of belonging and estrangement are two contradictory feelings that are part of her identity.

Masri has made films in one country ravaged by occupation (Palestine) and another by civil war (Lebanon). The background in all her films has been war simply because that's what she has experienced all her life. She thinks that war brings out the best and worst in people, a notion that has interested and fascinated her. She has witnessed the death of loved ones and the gradual erosion of her country but she is amazed at how people manage to laugh, love and survive despite all the death and destruction around them.

In each of the films she has made on her own or co-directed with her husband filmmaker Jean Khalil Chamoun, she has developed a very close relationship with the characters, a sort of trust or complicity that helps them open up and overcome their inhibitions in front of the camera. Masri does not conduct conventional interviews. She sets the mood and allows the story to develop naturally through conversations and narrative sequences. To her, documentary isn't simply about "recording reality." It is about unveiling a world that is composed of many magical layers. It is the art of seeing through other people's eyes, discovering and bringing out the poetry in everyday life.

Her films are about ordinary people living in extraordinary times and how they manage to survive and hold onto their humanity despite the devastating situations in which they find themselves. The characters in her films bear a resemblance to her; they speak for her. She lives out her dreams and fears through them. They are not passive victims. Each of the women in her films is rebelling against some form or another of injustice in their lives. The main character in Suspended Dreams is a woman searching for her missing husband who was kidnapped during the civil war in Lebanon. Her real passion, however, has been for the children in her films. She is fascinated by their ability to transcend the overwhelming difficulties of their daily lives through fantasy, dream and play. She loves their originality and creativity, which speak to her own subconscious world and open new horizons in her cinematic journey.