Dima Hamdan

Dima Hamdan (Arabic: ديما حمدان; born 1975) is a Palestinian-Jordanian-British filmmaker and journalist based in Berlin. Her short film Blood Like Water (2023) won the 2024 Iris Prize. Hamdan was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents. Her grandfather was displaced from Umm Khaled during the Nakba, while her mother was "driven out at gunpoint" from Tulkarem during the Naksa in 1967. Amid Gulf War, Hamdan moved with her family to Jordan. Hamdan studied Law at Jordanian university. In an interview by Shoot’n’Post, Hamdan mentioned that she always dreamt of becoming a film director since she was 12 or 13, but at the time there was not a prospect of her going to film school as her family expected her to become a lawyer. At university, she studied law, but never practiced it. She eventually found herself getting into journalism because she thought it would be a good opportunity to meet film directors and actors. Hamdan began her journalism career in 1997 working as a parliamentary cultural correspondent for The Jordan Times. During this she met directors and actors, which reinforced her early interest in filmmaking. She also contributed to Al-Hayat and the Middle East Times. In 2002, Hamdan joined the London office of BBC Arabic and BBC World Service. Hamdan reported from cities like Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Beirut. She worked for the network until 2014 as a reporter and producer. Hamdan noted that she valued being out on the street, collecting stories, and talking to people. She was influenced during her time as a journalist, making it her goal to tell stories not just with reporting, but through filmmaking. Much of her inspiration came from the experiences she heard from others. Hamdan would compare and connect them to her parents’ experiences with exile and war, influencing her desire to make films. While still working as a journalist, Hamdan began writing her own scripts and she got her first opportunity in 2009 by RAWI Sundance screenwriter’s lab in Jordan. She has since made five or six short films, all self-financed and self-produced. Hamdan stated that even though she didn’t attend film school, films up to this point have been her primary education. Hamdan stopped being a journalist in 2014. As of 2017, Hamdan is founding editor and manager of the Marie Colvin Journalists' Network (MCJN), a collective of women journalists in the Arab World.