Dania is my name. It literally means (close to something) in Arabic, and that what I aspire to be. Close to the lives of millions through the stories I tell..

I was 8 when I told my baby sister a little story to put her to sleep, on a cold night of the year 2000, when we were visiting our isolated little town by the Euphrates river. My mother heard the story and admired it constantly and encouraged me to write it down. Ever since was the beginning of my long-lasting relationship with storytelling.  Coming from a mixed Syrian-Iraqi origin, belonging to a city with no film theaters and no libraries, and growing up in a third place, the UAE,  I had complicated visions about identity and roots. Stories were my way to locate myself in this chaotic world where my passport can not get me beyond the borders drawn for me as a ‘Syrian’, but my imagination flies freely to the end of the world. Because of storytelling,  I learned to find magic in the bitterness of constant changes in cities, schools, faces, feelings, and times, and I was able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary everyday details. 

I made my first short film ever when I was in grade 7, using my mother’s Nokia phone. (The Imagination Game) was about a group of kids playing a game in which each of them imagine a sky that rains multiple things: flowers, candies, chocolate, and toys, only to realize that the most beautiful thing about the sky is that it rains water. Despite my high grades in the scientific major my parents chose for me in high school, in hope that one day I will end up a doctor, I graduated from high school dreaming of an art collage and I was granted a scholarship in the American University of Dubai, majoring in Digital production and storytelling. I focused on (Screenplay writing and directing) and graduated with honor, receiving  the most distinguished student award in my college. In addition, I hold a certificate in Middle Eastern Studies from the same university. Currently I am obtaining an MA degree in Storytelling for Script & Screen from Falmouth University, UK.

At the age of 17, I won the ministry of culture and youth’s competition for short stories. The ministry published my book 3 years later entitled “Sareya”. By the time I entered the age of 21, my script “Al Yaquobya” won the best screenplay prize in the International Original Narrative Students film festival in Dubai. Two years later, I won the best screenplay award for my graduation film, which I co-wrote and directed, “Dark Chocolate”, at the same film festival. The film gained international acclaim as well, and won the Young Director Award in the Scandinavian International Film Festival in Helsinki.

My work experience varies between the private and the governmental sectors, and covers several entities such as MBC-O3, Memac&Ogilvy, Zee Entertainment, Sharjah TV, Vice Arabia, and Dubai Government.

In the meantime, I work as a Creative Content Manager in MENA region for a Hong-Kong based OTT platform called VIU, where I review, evaluate, select, and develop original creative content for the platform.