|
 |
Darine Hamzé, a gifted Lebanese actress, poet, and director, was born a second child to a flight engineer father and a housewife mother. As interesting as it may be to be born next to the Jupiter Temples of the Roman Empire Ruins in Baalbek and the mountains of “Souk Al Ghareb”, Lebanon, it surely is frightening to be living there during the Lebanese war. She faced a childhood of constant travelling, changing of schools, and fleeing homes and bombshells between Souk Alghareb, Beirut, Baalbek and France during the war. She was finally sent for five years, between the age of 8 and 13, to a British boarding school (ISC) in Bath, along with her two brothers, while moving to Paris, France for Christmas and summer vacation with her family. Her recollection of the events during this period, when asked, is five years of airport check-ins and aeroplane flights every 4 months. |
|
During her time in England, Darine discovered Shakespeare's theatre and her early admiration for performance. Evidently her first appearance on a stage was during this young age in Bath participating in all school plays.
In 1990 Darine Hamzé came back to Lebanon when the war was declared over.
Five years later she graduated from high school. She immediately applied and was accepted to the Fine Arts Academy of the Lebanese University, Theatre Department. From then on she found her element in this new society after falling in love with acting and directing, quickly becoming a Lebanese actress/director in the making.
Darine Hamzé's first play performance in Lebanon began in 1997 in "Alraghif" directed by Tallal Dirjani. The following year, 1998, was a very busy year. Darine began with a play performance in the play "Kana's Border" by Mashhour Mostapha. She later on became the main actress singer for the best renowned "Lebanese Puppet Theatre" group directed by Karim Dakroub. She had watched their first play, was smitten by this magical world of puppets, and instinctively applied for a role. This collaboration lasted for five years creating five plays. Along with that were participations in international puppet festivals and workshops that had her travel to most of Europe's capitals to perform. Moreover, during that same year, she had her first part as a main role in a Lebanese TV series called "Talbeen Alkourob" screened on LBCI.
Next, 1999, was the year of her graduation with a BA in Theatre Arts (acting/ directing). It was also the year Darine won the first prize award for her graduation film "Flat, Pale, White Hands" at The Future TV Academic Excellence Awards. This event helped her discover how much she admires camera and film, and from this moment on she was convinced that her career will include the big screen.
|
 |
Her new love of film expanded more as she acted the main role in the film "Her Absurdity" by Chadi Zein in the year 2000. She continued taking on theatre proposals by acting in the object moving- theatre play "THE" by Sam Bardawil the same year. The following year, 2001, Darine worked at Future TV as an assistant director to gain some practical editing skills.
Keeping her English education and background close to heart, Darine travelled back to London that year to publish her poetry art book "7am Blink" on the web launched www.111101.net (London- UK) in collaboration with the painter/illustrator, Rafic Majzoub.
In 2002, Darine decided to take it up a notch by travelling to New York where she attended a film making class at Columbia University. There she acted in the short student film “The Park” directed by Nadine Khouri. |
|
Her connection and nostalgia for England's amazing cultural and artistic riches led her, in 2003, to apply to the British Council's MA scholarships. She was accepted and travelled to London (UK) for an MA in Media Arts at the University of Westminster. Her two years as an MA student in London gave birth to two video installation exhibition shows she prepared: “I Axis” at 291 Gallery and “Flesh Exits” at The Lennox Gallery. There she was able to build her directing and editing skills and created a new short experimental film ‘’Skin Plasticity’’. She also traveled to Ireland and worked as an assistant director in the short 16mm film “Killing the Afternoon” directed by Margaret Corckery.
In 2005, Darine returned to Beirut with her MA from London and directly started giving courses in acting, editing and media arts in a number of Universities. She also worked as a director/ editor in two cinema critique episodes in the program "Al-Adasa Al-Arabia", for Al-Jazeera TV. |
 |
|
 |
Her acting passion, however, kept peeking back, and the next year, 2006, Darine accepted a main role, “Aayda”, in the lebanese TV series "Hkeyit Aayda :: Aayda'’s story" for LBCI. That same year, she participated with her idol (top Lebanese artist- singer/ icon), “Fairuz”, as an actress in a choral composation in Fairuz's Musical play "Sah Alnom", Baalbek International Festival. |
|
From then on, Darine concentrated on acting alone. Thus, the following year 2007 was spent acting two main roles in two iranian film productions being shot in Lebanon: “Last song of Sinbad” directed by Arash Moayenian, and “Rebirth” directed by Abbas Rafie. This gave her the opportunity to grow into an acting career in Iranian cinema, in 2008, where she was given a big role co-starring the Iranian superstar actor, Parviz Parastui, in a 35mm feature film "Kitab Kanoun" directed by Maziar Miri. Her character "Juliet" was a foreigner who marries an Iranian and moves there to live with him, only ending up criticizing the whole Iranian Islamic society. It was a great challenge traveling between Lebanon and Iran and learning by heart a full text in the Persian language that she had never heard or spoken before.
During that same year she acted as main cast in a video clip "Hamil Outer Bladi" with one of her childhood Lebanese idol singers, the famous theatre artist Ghassan Saliba, composed by Ossama Rahbany and directed by Joe Abou Eid. She also received a main part as Joumana in the TV series "JAD WA NOUR - JAD AND NOUR" for OTV, directed by Fadi Kadouh; as well as another role in the LBCI TV series, "SHAYEH MIN ALKOWA" directed by Ellie Maalouf.
The year 2008 was ended with a main role in the film "AL LOUHLOUHA- THE PEARL", featuring the story of the real life events of a Jewish Lebanese spy, Shola Cohen, who was captured in the 1950s under the presidential reign of President Fouad Shehab. This film was produced by LBCI and directed by Fouad Khoury.
2009 started with the shooting of "AL-DAWAMA- The Loop", with Darine as main role actress starring as Nadia Najmi – a high class sophisticated divorcee of half French half Syrian origins. Al-Dawama, a Syrian TV drama series for Ramadan, is written by the late Mamdouh Aadwan and directed by Alouthana Sobh. The plot spins around Syria's revolutions and political surrounding in the late 1940 -50s while illustrating a beautiful love story that ends dramatically in that era.
 |
