Alumna Annemarie Jacir ’02 Develops 'Mornings in Jenin'

Alumna Annemarie Jacir '02 is developing a television series based on the novel Mornings in Jenin by Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa. Jacir received development funding for the project from the Doha Film Institute’s Fall Grant making it one of 39 projects to win the prestigious support fund.

Mornings in Jenin is the multigenerational story of a Palestinian family forced out of their village into the Jenin refugee camp. The series follows the Abulheja family — Yehya and Basima and their two sons — who are forced to leave their homestead in Palestine by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, and follows them through half a century of trials and tribulations in five countries. The novel was published in 2010 and has been translated into 30 languages.

Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir has written, directed and produced over sixteen films. One of Filmmaker's 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema and Variety's "Arab New Wave," two of her films have premiered as Official Selections in Cannes, one in Venice and one in Berlin. Her short film like twenty impossibles (2003) was the first Arab short film in history to be an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and continued to break ground when it went on to be a finalist for the Academy Awards. Her second work to debut in Cannes, the critically acclaimed Salt of this Sea (2008), went on to win the FIPRESCI Critics Award, and garnered fourteen other international awards including Best Film in Milan. It was the first feature film directed by a Palestinian woman and Palestine's 2008 Oscar Entry for Foreign Language Film. Her latest film When I Saw You won Best Asian Film at the Berlin International Festival, Best Arab Film in Abu Dhabi and Best Film in Amiens, Phoenix, and Olympia, and garnered a nomination at the Asian Pacific Screen Awards. It was also Palestine’s 2012 Oscar Entry. 

The release date for the show has yet to be announced.