Sanaa Hamri (Arabic: سناء حمري; born November 19, 1977)[1] is a Moroccan-American film, television, and music video director. She has directed music videos for musicians including Prince, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and Sting. She is known for her 2010 film Just Wright and the 2008 movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, as well as for her music video for the Nicki Minaj song “Super Bass”. Hamri made her directorial debut in 2006 with the romantic comedy Something New. Scholar Shelley Cobb has credited Hamri’s work as “[offering] alternative representations of black women that productively engage with and even challenge usual stereotypes, even as they use and conform to mainstream cinematic conventions”. Hamri was born in Tangier, Morocco, to Moroccan Muslim Mohamed Hamri and Jewish Moroccan Blanche “Blanca” Hamri. Her father came from the town of Jajouka and was a painter and author. Hamri’s mother was a teacher. Both of Hamri’s parents were part of the creative community in Morocco, which was made up of ex-pats such as Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Ted Morgan and Tennessee Williams. In fact, Hamri’s mother was the long-time secretary to Joseph A. McPhillips III, the headmaster of the American School of Tangier, who was later in charge of Bowles’ estate. Hamri attended the American School of Tangier, where her mother worked. The school was not gender balanced: at one point, Hamri was the only girl on the soccer team and eventually, the sole female student enrolled at her high school. In 1992, Hamri moved to the United States after receiving a scholarship to attend Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. In college, she studied theatre arts and pursued acting. Hamri spent her junior year of college in Paris, and in 1996 graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. After college, Hamri moved to New York City in order to pursue an acting career. Hamri struggled through auditions and unemployment before she decided to try working in the production side of the business. She taught herself filmmaking skills firsthand, such as how to use an avid editing machine. Hamri then moved from seeking an acting career to making videos and was eventually noticed by cinematographer, Malik Hassan Sayeed. During this time she worked as an editor of music videos at a post-production studio. Sayeed, who also produced videos, was impressed by Hamri’s work and showed it to Mariah Carey, who subsequently hired Hamri to direct a music video. Sayeed also gave Hamri her first editing job for a reggae/hip-hop fusion group called Born Jamericans. Hamri then began to take on more work as she became better known.
