As Yumna Marwan readied herself for the premiere of Little Birds, she openly admitted worries about how her parents would respond in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph. To protect her own boundaries, she made it clear she would avoid nudity and explicit sex scenes, yet even with those limits she worried the part might still be bolder than her family expected.
Marwan remained apprehensive about her family’s perceptions. Her character, Cherifa Lamor, a daring dominatrix, challenges traditional norms in a narrative intertwined with Juno Temple’s Lucy Savage, pushing societal boundaries in search of love and independence.
It’s funny, but it’s not funny; even though I made sure that I would never show my breasts or my ass or I would never be in a scene where I’m having sex, it’s still like I did too much for what my family would expect from me.
Her concern about family approval reflects a deeper connection to her roots: born in Beirut and raised partly in Iowa after emigrating as a teenager, Marwan draws on her Lebanese and Palestinian heritage. Her name, Yumna, is Arabic for good fortune and success, and off screen she is a mother to two daughters—details that have shaped both her choices and her career. Here’s more on her story.
Mother of Two
Yumna is the mother of two daughters, born on August 6, 2022 and in 2024, and she carefully controls how much of their lives appears online. Her Instagram shares a handful of curated photos that reveal moments of motherhood while preserving the girls’ privacy — including keeping their identities and their father’s identity out of the public eye, much as she has with information about her own parents. Although some reports have linked the girls’ father to Palestinian actor and comedian Ali Suliman, those claims are inaccurate: Yumna is not married to Suliman, and she continues to decide which aspects of her personal life to share and which to keep private.
How Yumna Marwan Moved From Anthropology and Creative Writing Into Acting
Marwan’s route to filmmaking is far from conventional. Before she began working in front of the camera, she pursued studies in anthropology and creative writing at Smith College, graduating in 2013 — a background she discusses in more detail on her IMDb biography. Those studies broadened her perspective on human behavior and culture, which later informed her artistic choices.
Her entry into acting came unexpectedly during a chance meeting with writer-director Ghassan Salhab in a bar. At just 17 or 18 years old she was invited with the words, “I’m making a movie and I want you to act in it.” Initially doubtful, Marwan agreed after hearing the story, and that leap led to her first role in The Valley, which helped launch her career across Arabic and English-language projects.
Since that beginning she has appeared in a range of films and short pieces, including Après, The Incident, Before We Heal, The Translator, Little Birds, and The Veil. She has also moved behind the camera, writing and directing the short video Madina, IA.
Her work has been recognized by the industry: in 2019 she won Best Female Performance in a Lebanese Short Film and received a nomination for Best Ensemble Cast in a Lebanese Motion Picture for Tombé du ciel.
