Lamis Ammar (; born 1992) is a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

actress, writer, and video artist. She gained recognition for her lead role in the award-winning film ''Sand Storm'' (2016), which received the Grand Jury Prize at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

Life and career

Ammar was born in

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

in 1992 into a Palestinian family originating from Acre and Al-Tira. When she was four, her family moved to the lower city of

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

. She studied theater and acting at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa (, ) is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963 as a branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation as an inde ...

and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Initially, she wanted to be a clown, but chose acting as a major, as this was the closest to clowning at university she could find. She had worked as a clown at an amusement park during high school. During her studies, she worked in a puppet theater for children to earn money. She began her artistic career at the community-based The Freedom Theatre in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

during her second year of studies. She performed in various productions, including works by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

, and participated in theater festivals in

Nazareth Nazareth is the largest Cities in Israel, city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. In its population was . Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and ...

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

, and

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

. In 2018, she won the main prize of the Teatronetro Theater Festival in Jaffa for the

monodrama A monodrama is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character. In opera In opera, a monodrama was originally a melodrama with one role such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's '' Pygmalion'', which w ...

''Salty Roads'' that she performed. During her studies, she also started acting in films. In 2016, she acted in the lead role of feature film ''Sand Storm''. The film won a Grand Jury Prize at the

and was shown at the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

. Ammar was nominated for the

Ophir Award The Ophir Awards (), full name: the Israel Film Academy Award, sometimes also known as the Israeli Oscars or the Israeli Academy Awards, are film awards for excellence in the Israeli film industry awarded by the Israeli Academy of Film and Tele ...

as Best Actress for the film. She also appeared in ''A Tramway in Jerusalem'' (2018) directed by

Amos Gitai Amos Gitai () is an artist and an Israelis, Israeli filmmaker, born 11 October 1950 in Haifa, Israel. Gitai's work was presented in several major retrospectives in Pompidou Center in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Lincoln Center for ...

and ''Between Heaven and Earth'' (2019) directed by

Najwa Najjar Najwa Najjar () is a film writer and director. She was born to a Jordanian father and Palestinian mother. She began her career making commercials and has worked in both documentary and fiction since 1999. Najjar lives in the Palestinian Territorie ...

. In 2019, she received an award for her role in the short film ''Beit Berl''. She is one of the lead actresses in the upcoming film ''Desert Warrior'' alongside

Anthony Mackie Anthony Dwane Mackie (born September 23, 1978) is an American actor. He gained wide recognition for portraying Sam Wilson / Falcon / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with the film '' Captain America: The Winter Soldier ...

and

Ben Kingsley Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Ben Kingsley, various accolades throughout Ben Kingsley on screen and stage, his career spanning fi ...

. Lamis Ammar currently (2025) resides in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in Germany. Since 2019, she has acted in German theaters, among them

Maxim Gorki Theater The Maxim Gorki Theatre () is a theatre in Berlin-Mitte named after the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky. In 2012, the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit named Şermin Langhoff as the artist director of the theatre. History It is the oldest concert hall bui ...

and

Volksbühne The Volksbühne ("People's Theatre") is a theater in Berlin. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (Rosa Luxemburg Square) in what was the GDR's capital. It has been called Berlin's most iconic theatre. About The V ...

. She moved to Germany, because in Haifa, she felt "as if I was treated as a provocation just because I am Palestinian". When she spoke out publicly about Palestinian victims of the

Gaza genocide According to a United Nations Special Committee, Amnesty International, and other experts, Israel is committing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip as part of the Gaza w ...

, she received death threats and several Israeli newspapers defamed her. Her play ''Mein bedrohliches Gedicht'', set to premiere at Volksbühne in Berlin in November 2023, was postponed and only taken up again in 2024. She criticized the repression of free speech around Palestine in Germany. She is fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, English, and German. Besides acting, she has written scripts and worked as a video artist for several galleries in Haifa (among them the Beit-HaGefen Arab Jewish Culture Center in 2017).

Filmography

* ''

Sand Storm A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a Outflow boundary, gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles ...

'' (2016) * ''Sirens'' (TV series, 2017) * ''A Tramway in Jerusalem'' (2018) * ''Between Heaven and Earth'' (2019) * ''Beit Berl'' (2019) * ''Silence of the Desert'' (2021) * ''Irene and Steve'' (2022) * '' Desert Warrior'' (upcoming)

Theater

* ''Salty Roads'' at Jaffa Theater (2017) * ''Third Generation'' at Maxim Gorki Theater (2019–2020) * ''Vögel'' at Theater Lübeck (2021–2022) * ''Dat Leven vun de Liven'' at Ohnsorg Theater (2022) * ''Ohne Tee kann man nicht Kämpfen'' at Theater Krefeld und Mönchengladbach (2024) * ''Mein bedrohliches Gedicht'' at Volksbühne (2024)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ammar, Lamis 1992 births Living people People from Acre, Israel 21st-century Palestinian actresses Palestinian film actresses Palestinian stage actresses Palestinian television actresses