Darine Hamze (Arabic: دارين حمزة‎); is a Lebanese actress. She is one of the well known actresses in the Arab world credited for taking on diverse roles, and in different languages and countries. She has been working in film, television and theatre since 1991.

Biography

Darine Hamze, was born on the 5th of July 1979 as a second child to a flight engineer father and a housewife interior decorator mother, in Souk El Gharb, Lebanon. She was sent to the United Kingdom (England), between the age of 8 and 13, to a British boarding school (ISC) in Bath, along with her two brothers.

During her time in England, Darine discovered Shakespeare's theatre. Evidently her first appearance on a stage was during this young age in Bath participating in all school plays.

In 1996 Darine Hamze applied and was accepted to the Fine Arts Academy of the Lebanese University, Theatre Department. 1999 was the year of her graduation with a BA in Theatre Arts (acting/directing).

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 travelled back to London that year to publish her poetry art book "7am Blink" on the web launched 111101 (London, UK) in collaboration with painter/illustrator Rafic Majzoub.

In 2002, Darine travelled to New York where she attended film making classes at Columbia University. There she acted in the short student film “The Park” directed by Nadine Khouri.

Her connection with England 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 Practice at the University of Westminster.

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.

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 the main role co-starring Iranian actor Parviz Parastui, in a 35mm feature film "The Book of Law – 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.

The year 2008 was ended with a main role in the film "Shola Cohen – The Pearl / Al Louhlouha", featuring the story of the real-life events of a Jewish Lebanese spy, Shola Cohen, who was captured in the 1950s under the reign of President Fuad Chehab. This film was produced by LBCI and directed by Fouad Khoury.

In 2010, Darine starred in the Iranian film Saturday's Hunter which depicts Jews massacring Arabs while seeking God-Like Powers. The film was directed by Parviz Sheikh Tadi and nominated in the Fajr Film Festival.

She also shot a Lebanese-Iranian film "33 Days" that year, in which she played an Israeli lieutenant speaking Hebrew in it, directed by Iranian director Jamal Shorje.