Actress Yasmine Al Massri joins E. Nina Rothe for a conversation about her work in Annemarie Jacir’s acclaimed Palestine 36. Together, they’ll discuss the making of the film, the development of her character, and the significance of Hamada Atallah’s costumes design.
Make it a truly unique experience and join us after the Q&A for a splendid three-course Italian dinner at Bvlgari’s Sette.
PALESTINE 36
dir: Annemarie Jacir
with Karim Daoud Anaya, Jeremy Irons, Yasmine Al Massri, Hiam Abbass, Robert Aramayo, Saleh Bakri, Liam Cunningham, Yumna Marwan, Billy Howle
Costume Designer: Hamada Atallah
Occupied Palestinian Territory / UK / US / France / Denmark / Norway / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / Jordan / Sweden / Australia | 2025 | 115 min
1936. As villages across Mandatory Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.
Hamada Atallah’s costumes are the result of a thorough research and lend the film a powerful sense of authenticity and historical credibility.
ABOUT YASMINE AL MASSRI
Yasmine Al Massri is an internationally recognized, multi-award-winning film and television actress, producer, and multimedia artist with an extensive career across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. Her artistic practice spans acting, dance, performance art, and experimental video work, with a strong focus on socially engaged storytelling that amplifies underrepresented voices and addresses themes of identity, displacement, gender, and justice.
She holds a Master’s degree in multimedia and live performance from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where her work focused on performance and the transformative potential of storytelling through new technologies and live media.
Al Massri’s recent work includes a guest-starring role in the third season of the BBC/PBS Masterpiece drama The Marble Hall Murders, filmed in Ireland and Greece and set to air in spring 2026. She also starred in the historical epic Palestine 36, co-produced by the BBC and the BFI, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and screened in official competition at the BFI London Film Festival. The film achieved a strong box-office performance in the UK and Ireland, won Best Film at the Tokyo International Film Festival, received nominations from the European Film Awards and Asia Pacific Screen Awards, and was selected to represent Palestine in the 2026 Academy Awards race.
She received the Best Actress Award at the Seattle International Film Festival (2024) for The Strangers’ Case, which also won Best International Feature at the Raindance Film Festival and garnered over forty international awards and nominations. The film is scheduled for global theatrical release in January 2026. She was also nominated for Best Actress at the 2025 Cannes International Film Festival (ACC, MAD Solutions, and IEFTA) for Thank You for Banking with Us, a film exploring gender inequality in inheritance laws.
Earlier in her career, Al Massri starred in Caramel, which premiered at Cannes and became the highest-grossing Middle Eastern film at the time, winning multiple international awards including the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Ensemble. She also appeared in Miral, nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and recipient of UNICEF and UNESCO Human Rights Awards. On television, she starred as twin FBI agents in Quantico, earning recognition from Variety as a Breakout Star of 2015, and appeared in Crossbones and Law & Order.
Her voice work includes portraying the first Middle Eastern vampire in Netflix’s Castlevania and voicing the first Egyptian character in Disney’s Mickey Mouse Funhouse.
Raised as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, Al Massri’s personal history deeply informs her artistic mission. She has spoken at the United Nations for World Refugee Day and collaborated with organizations including the Red Cross, UNHCR, Oxfam, War Child, and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Fluent in Arabic, French, and English, with conversational Spanish, she works across cultures and continents, using cinema and performance as tools for dialogue, representation, and social change.
ABOUT E. NINA ROTHE
E. Nina Rothe in a journalist and blogger who was born in Florence, Italy and grew up in New York City.
She has written for Vogue Italia, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Cosmopolitan Middle East, The Art Newspaper, Empire Arabia, Tehelka, The National, Bespoke, Thrive Global, Firstpost, and the HuffPost. Nina has also moderated masterclasses and public talks with the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Meg Ryan, Annemarie Jacir, Haifaa al-Mansour, Andrei Konchalovsky and French photographer Brigitte Lacombe.
Lately, she has been contributing to Screen International, with a focus on cinema from the MENA region, but also fashion and art publication Flaunt Magazine. Nina now lives in London and runs her own website at ENinaRothe.com.