Sanaa Hamri - Early Life and Breakthrough

Early Life and Breakthrough

Hamri was born in Tangier, Morocco to the late Moroccan painter and author Mohammed Hamri. In 1992, at the age of 17, she won a scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where she studied theatre. She studied her junior year of college in Paris, graduated in 1996 and then moved to Manhattan. With dreams of becoming an actress, Hamri struggled through auditions and unemployment before she decided to try directing. Hamri taught herself to use an Avid editing machine in 2000 and has never taken a filmmaking course. Realizing she had a talent for putting images together in order to tell a story, Hamri began making videos and approaching the music industry.

Her big break came when video mogul Malik Sayeed saw one of her early productions and loved it. He showed it to Mariah Carey, who was just as impressed as Malik and hired Hamri to direct her video. He also gave Hamri her first editing job for a reggae – hip hop fusion group called Born Jamericans. Hamri made her directing debut two years later after meeting music video director Hype Williams.