Suha Arraf
سهى عرّاف
Born: Mi'ilya, Israel
Domain: Film & Television
Recognition: REGIONAL
Biography
Suha Arraf is a Palestinian screenwriter, director, and journalist whose scripts helped define a landmark period of Palestinian narrative cinema before she moved into directing her own work. Born in the Galilee village of Mi'ilya, she studied history and theater and began her career as a journalist and documentary maker focused on Palestinian society inside Israel. Arraf is best known as the screenwriter of two of the most internationally successful Palestinian-themed films directed by Eran Riklis: "The Syrian Bride" (2004) and "Lemon Tree" (2008). The latter, about a Palestinian widow's legal battle to save her lemon grove from being uprooted for security reasons, won the Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival's Panorama section and became one of the most widely seen films centering a Palestinian woman's struggle. She made her directorial debut with "Villa Touma" (2014), a drama about three aristocratic Christian Palestinian sisters in Ramallah clinging to a vanished world after 1967. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and drew significant attention, including a public controversy over its national identity when Arraf insisted the film be designated Palestinian rather than Israeli, a stance that became a notable episode in debates over Palestinian cultural identity and state funding. Arraf's work, both as writer and director, has consistently centered Palestinian women and the textures of Palestinian society, and her defense of the Palestinian identity of her film made her a symbol of cultural self-determination. She is recognized as one of the most influential Palestinian screenwriters of her generation and an important director in her own right.
Why This Person Matters
Arraf wrote the internationally beloved 'Lemon Tree' and 'The Syrian Bride,' then took a public stand for the Palestinian identity of her own film, becoming a symbol of cultural self-determination.