Hany Abu-Assad

Hany Abu-Assad (Template:Langx; born 11 October 1961) is an Israeli and Dutch film director and screenwriter of Palestinian origin. He has received two Academy Award nominations: in 2006 for his film Paradise Now, and again in 2013 for his film Omar.

Early life

File:Habsora from selezian.jpg

Panoramic view of Nazareth, Abu-Assad's birthplace

Abu-Assad was born into a Palestinian family in 1961 in Nazareth, Israel. In 1981, he immigrated to the Netherlands, where he studied aerodynamics in Haarlem and worked as an airplane engineer for several years. Abu-Assad holds dual Israeli and Dutch citizenship. He was inspired to pursue a career in cinema after watching a film by Michel Khleifi. He initially started as a television producer working on commissions for Channel 4 and the BBC. Abu-Assad founded Ayloul Film Productions in 1990 with the Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi.

Film career

In 1992, Abu-Assad wrote and directed his first short film, Paper House which was made for NOS Dutch television and won several international awards at film festivals in Paris and Jerusalem.

In 1998, he directed his first film, Het 14de kippetje (The Fourteenth Chick), from a script by writer Arnon Grunberg. Later films include the documentary Nazareth 2000 (2000) and the feature film Rana's Wedding (2002).

In 2002, Ford Transit was nominated for the Ophir Award in the documentary category.

In 2006, his film Paradise Now won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and received an Oscar-nomination in the same category. In 2005 Paradise Now won the Golden Calf for Best Feature Film at the Netherlands Film Festival.

His 2013 film Omar was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize. In 2014, Omar was the Palestinian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, and was nominated for the award. The film also won the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

In 2014, Abu-Assad was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 2018, Abu-Assad joined the film jury for ShortCutz Amsterdam, an annual film festival promoting short films in Amsterdam.

Filmography

• Paper House (1992, short film) - Director
• Curfew (1993) - Producer
• The 13th (1997, short film) - Director
• The Fourteenth Chick (1998) - Director
• Rana's Wedding (2002) - Director
• Paradise Now (2005) - Director
• The Courier (2012) - Director
• Omar (2013)
• The Idol (2015)
• The Mountain Between Us (2017)
• Huda's Salon (2021)

Documentaries

• Dar 0 Dour (1990) - Producer
• Long Days in Gaza (1991) - Producer
• De Arabieren van 2001 (1999) - Director
• Het Spijkerkwartier (2000) - Director
• Nazareth 2000 (2000) - Director
• Ford Transit (2002) - DirectorTemplate:Fact

See also

• List of Palestinian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Further reading

• Mendes, AC (2015). “Walled in/walled out in the West Bank: Performing Separation Walls in Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar”, Transnational Cinemas, 6.2, 123–136.

External links

• Template:Trim/ Hany Abu-Assad at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidata
• "It was a joke I was even nominated" The Guardian
• "I risked my life to make this movie" The Telegraph
• "Ticket to Paradise?" Christianity Today