Yasmine Al Massri is a Palastinian Frensh Actress, Video Artist, and a Dancer, born in lebanon, graduate and live in Paris, got her Diplome Nationale Superieure, from l´Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris.
She got her first acting chance with an international sucess Lebanese movie called "CARAMEL" with director Nadine Labaki, that got her the red carpet in Cannes Film Festival, and four projects in the following two years, an oscar nominated short Frensh movie "Manon sur le bitume", with Elizabeth Marr, and a special jury price from the Alexandria International movie festival for a long feature that was shot in the desert of Algeria where she had to learn the language of the Touareg or the Blue men, called "AYROUWEN" with director Ibrahim Tsaki, in the same year she shoots a Palastinian movie with director Najwa al Najjar, "Al Morr Wal Romman", with one of the biggest and most important casting of Palastinian actors, that opened in sundanse film festival, dubai international film festival and other more festivals this year.
She started her experience with dancing, in Paris in 2000, joining Thouraya Baghdadi´s company, a choregraph and ex dancer of Karacalla the Lebanese danse group, they tried to explore traditional and classical different way of performing Arab repertoire, being in Paris was also the chance to go wacth and learn from world culture danse events, where she got intrested about Flamenco, Salsa, and African dancing, at the end she went to Modern dancing repertoire to work on disipline and riguere in working with her self and researching for her personal way of expressing her movements, the experience have allowed her to learn from great choregraph like Salvador Vargas, Mohamad Haydar, Patricio Martin, Hasan Ghorbieh, Nina Dipla... in the same time she got accepted by l´Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris, where she mix the physical and the analytical work process, experiencing different movements, and different technologies, like Photo and Video, this gave birth to an experimental danse video, called "IN BETWEEN", and "BOUM..TAC" that were projected in different Art and cinema festivals arround the world, like Centre George Pompidou in Paris, Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece, "Née a Beyrouth" In lebanon, and in Festival La Rochelle, Côté court Film Festival.
"Boum...Tac" the video, wins this year the French government cinema department support to be coppied on a 35mm format.
Yasmine Al Massri´s work as an Actress, a Video Artist and a Dancer, use everything that the body can offer as an actor, a singer, a dancer, put it in interaction with different technologies and different way of expression, like cinema, theatre, and experimental performing arts, to ask the same questions that occupy our generation, like God, Love, Time, and Identity, plus her own personal story, being a Palastinian refugee born in Lebanon, an Arab liberal woman, living in paris , add questions to her journey, like the body of Arab woman in Arab society and strange societies, the future of dance in the arabe world, teritory, and identity that look for territory in human body or in material forms like lands and borders and flags and passports.....the relation between all these teritories...
Her main passion is to travel around the world to work with the best professionals in acting, singing and dancing. Last summer, she got the chance to follow an extensive training workshop in Musical Theatre with Peter Knopp, in the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London, hoping to be able to pursue her passion in between shooting.
Yasmine Al Massri have just finished shooting a movie called Miral, with director Julian Schnabel, the movie is an adaptation of a the palastinian novelist Roula Jebreal autobiography , the movie is expected to be released in 2010.
