Rawan Damen is a Palestinian filmmaker and media consultant. Born in Jordan into a Palestinian family from Nablus, she obtained a BA from Birzeit University (with distinction) in media and sociology, and an MA from Leeds University (with distinction) in documentary filmmaking.
Between 2001, when she did her first 10-minute documentary titled Waiting for Light, and 2013, when she did her most recent, two-hour-long documentary titled The Price of Oslo, produced in Norway, Damen created more than 25 hours of TV documentaries. All of them were managed as one-woman shows; she herself carried out all related research to produce, edit, and direct documentaries that have been translated into multiple languages. Most of these deal with Palestinian issues, and they include the internationally renowned, award-winning four-hour-long documentary series titled Al-Nakba.i
Damen has been a senior commissioning producer at Al Jazeera Media Network for the past ten years, and as such she has supervised over 250 documentaries for other directors – approximately 80 of them on Palestine, the others on Pan-Arab stories. In addition, she founded and leads the internationally renowned, award-winning project Palestine Remix, the largest visual, interactive website on Palestine.ii
Having co-authored three books on oral history and education, Damen has also spoken at tens of conferences and symposia around the world, promoting and counseling on how to tell the story of Palestine in a different way. She is a jury member in a number of Arab and international film festivals, and as a co-founder of the website Stream, she is a media trainer in documentary and interactive storytelling.iii
In December 2015, Damen received the Media Creativity Award, granted by the Arab Thought Foundation in Beirut.
i All of Rawan Damen’s documentaries are available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/rawandamen.
ii Palestine Remix is available at www.palestineremix.com.
iii Stream is available at www.followeverystream.com.
