Cherien Dabis

Cherien Dabis is a critically acclaimed and award winning Palestinian American film and television director, writer, and actor dedicated to telling complex authentic stories about under and misrepresented communities. Born in the U.S. and raised in Ohio and Jordan, Dabis studied film at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Last year, Dabis was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series for the critically acclaimed and groundbreaking episode “The Boy From 6B” on Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building”, starring comedy legends Steve Martin and Martin Short alongside Selena Gomez. Told from the perspective of a deaf character and with only one line of spoken dialogue, Dabis relied on ASL, compelling visuals, and the soundtrack to tell the story. In addition to her directing work on season 1, Dabis directed two episodes of season 2. Most recently, she wrapped on the pilot for AMC’s upcoming psychological thriller “Invitation to A Bonfire,” starring Tatiana Maslany and Pilou Asbaek. Other episodic directing credits include Hulu’s breakthrough comedy “Ramy” and Netflix’s “Ozark.” Her television writing and producing credits include Showtime’s original, groundbreaking series, “The L Word” and Fox’s hit, “Empire.”

Dabis got her start with her debut feature Amreeka, which she wrote and directed. The film premiered at Sundance in 2009 and went on to win the coveted FIPRESCI International Critics Prize in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. It won a dozen more international awards and was nominated for a Best Picture Gotham Award, 3 Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Picture, and named one of the Top Ten Independent Films of the Year by the National Board of Review. It landed Dabis on Variety’s “Ten Directors to Watch” list that same year. Dabis made history when the film broke records in its theatrical release by becoming the most-screened Arab-directed film in US-cinema history.

A true multi-hyphenate, Dabis made her acting debut when she starred opposite Bill Pullman and Alia Shawkat in her second feature film, 2013 Sundance opener “May in the Summer,” which she also wrote and directed. It’s now streaming on Amazon. She followed it up with an Arabic-language starring role in Suha Arraf’s “Villa Touma,” which premiered at the 2014 Venice and Toronto film festivals. She can currently be seen as a recurring guest star on “Mo,” a new, critically acclaimed comedy for Netflix. She also joined the star-studded cast of Scott Z. Burns’ upcoming Apple TV+ anthology series “Extrapolations.” She is currently shooting Amazon’s highly anticipated, post-apocalyptic series “Fallout” in which she recurs as a guest star.