Bassam Kousa
Birthday: Born in 1954-11-07 in Aleppo, Syria
Deathday: Alive
A prominent film and television actor in the Arab world, Bassam Kousa is known for his unconventional roles and his willingness to push the boundaries. Born in Aleppo, Syria on November 7, 1963, Kousa broke into the public consciousness with a string of prominent roles in Syrian TV shows such as ‘Ayyam Shamiyah’. One of his most popular roles was on ‘Bab Al Hara’, one of the most-watched TV shows in the Arab region. Although he only appeared in the first season of the show, his character, Idaghshiri, became instantly identifiable to an audience stretching from Gaza to the Arabian Gulf. Kousa has also acted in a number of feature films, including Usama Muhammad’s ‘The Box of Life’, which was screened at the 2002 Cannes Festival winning the Un Certain Regard award. In 2010, Kousa won the prestigious Adonia award, Syria’s version of the Emmys, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role in ‘Wara’a al Shams’. In the show, Kousa plays a man struggling with autism, a controversial role that has raised eyebrows in a traditionally conservative region. A passionate supporter of the Arab film industry, Kousa has called for a shift in perceptions in the Arab world, with a number of people still considering acting as an ‘immoral’ profession. He has said that in order to change perceptions, cultural establishments in the public and private sectors should cooperate to raise awareness on art as a form of entertainment and enlightenment. During a recent visit to Amman, he was honoured by the Royal Film Commission, who screened three of his films.
TV Credits
سوق الحرير
Character: عمران الحرايري
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أبناء القهر
Character: عصام
Essam and Ragaa experience unsolvable problems and disputes over one of Essam's colleagues. These disputes increase to affect their children negatively over time....
الغريب
Character:
Forced to flee Syria with his family after his son accidentally kills a man, Youssef, a reputable judge, soon finds himself faced with hitherto unimaginable choices....
الصندوق الأسود
Character:
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درب التبان
Character:
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زمن العار
Character:
Having spent most of her 20s taking care of her sick mother and her family's household, a sexually repressed woman elopes and has to face the hypocrisies of middle eastern society....
وجوه وراء الوجوه
Character:
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الإنتظار
Character: وائل
Events of the series take place in a poor neighborhood, shedding light on the lives of its people, especially the life of an illegitimate young man who makes every effort to be helpful to others....
طاحون الشر
Character:
The events revolve around the Levantine environment and the social problems that permeate it, during the period of the French occupation of the country....
الخوالي
Character:
The story of Nassar Ibn Oraibi, a fighter against injustice, that sheds light on the life in the Damascus neighborhood and the role of one woman who becomes responsible for the house and her four daughters in light of her husband's absence during the Hajj....
روزنا
Character:
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ليالي الصالحية
Character: المخرز
A man entrusts Abu Al Makhraz with a huge sum of money and disappears. When Abu Al Makhraz dies, his family finds themselves pitted against his relatives....
تاج
Character: رياض بك الجوهر
During World War II, Taj, the renowned boxer in Damascus, is accused of treason, tarnishing his honor and reputation. His life takes a drastic turn as he finds himself forced to engage in a fierce battle to reclaim his family, while Syria witnesses significant events leading up to independence....
أهل الغرام
Character:
The series revolves around failed love stories as a result of a compelling circumstance or because of a social or financial problem or a problem related to religion so that the audience develops a state of sympathy with the series characters In each episode the series presents a separate station from the other detailing a glowing love relationship that was extinguished by various circumstances...
قمر شام
Character:
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مال القبان
Character: نعمان الزير
The events of the series take place inside (Al-Hal Market) in the capital (Damascus), highlighting the conditions of the Syrians, through the story of the (Noman Al-Zeer) family and the events and problems they are exposed to....
سر
Character:
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حارة ع الهوا
Character: أبو وديع
The series deals with social life and raises many important issues that the Arab society suffers from, such as authoritarianism, social pressures. It also presents the negatives and positives in a dramatic comic style....
قانون ولكن
Character: ناظم
The events of the series revolve around a general manager of a major government institution for construction and development, who pretends to be honorable and moral. He only respects the law because he is extremely afraid of it, but he wants to circumvent it....
كوم الحجر
Character:
The series monitors the social, political and cultural life in Syria from the period 1932 to 1936, where the events take place in two neighboring areas: the city of Aleppo, and a supposed rural area called Kom alHajar....
أيام شامية
Character: حمدي القاق
Set in an old neighbourhood in Damascus towards the end of the Ottoman era, this story brings to life the traditions, customs, and relationships of the time....
باب الحارة
Character: الإدعشري
A social drama set in the 1920s in Damascus. It highlights Damascene life, noble values, and ancient customs and traditions represented by the people of Harat al-Dabeh who fled to Harat al-Salihiyah after the French bombed Harat al-Dabeh. The events take place after the gold is stolen from the house of the cloth merchant Abu Ibrahim, and the guard Abu al-Samu is killed. The men of the neighborhood try to find the thief....
الحقائب (ضبو الشناتي)
Character: Khalil - خليل
The story of an ordinary Syrian family, torn between the idea of staying at home or migrating to a safer country. They eventually decide to leave, but they keep facing different obstacles in each of the separated-connected episodes....
سيرة آل الجلالي
Character:
The series sheds light on the life of the Al-Jalali family, one of the most prestigious families in the city of Aleppo. The story revolves around a man who amassed a great fortune through both legitimate and illegitimate means, including depriving his siblings of their rightful inheritance. As time passes, the elder of the Al-Jalali family falls ill and finds himself with no one to assist him and his children except his brother—whom he had previously denied his wealth. However, mysterious events...
أحلام كبيرة
Character: أبو عمر
The Halaby family works in trade. When the father decides to write all his property over to one of his sons, the two brothers clash, until the eldest brother falls ill, and his younger son is forced to give up his ambition to take care of their business....
الفصول الأربعة
Character: نجيب
The story of a Syrian family and their daily interactions including the father (Kareem), the mother (Nabila) and the aunt (Jamila). Kareem and Nabila have 5 daughters (Faten, Laila, Majeda, Shadia and Nadia), each of them with different aspirations and lifestyles....
سوق الحرامية (كانون)
Character: عبد القادر عبد القادر
Taking place in the Thieves' Market located in the Syrian capital, Damascus, the events deal with a number of stories dealing with counterfeiting currencies, drug trafficking, and others....
البطل
Character: يوسف
After risking his life to pull a teenager from the clutches of a fatal fire, a middle-aged man becomes a local hero – only to find himself amidst an inevitable power battle against a cunning thug....
صدى الروح
Character:
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وراء الشمس
Character: بدر
Alaa Al-Din Zeibak, a man from a well-off family, has Down syndrome, and he crosses paths with Badr, a man of a humble origin, who has autism spectrum disorder. As they interact, several situations ensue, shedding light on the lives and struggles of the differently-abled people....
عصر الجنون
Character: صالح محفوظ
Mona and Zainab deal with different types of social pressure as one runs away to avoid an arranged marriage, and the other decides to raise a lost boy....
سحابة صيف
Character: ديب الهادي
The events revolve around the migration and the difficult circumstances of a mixture of Arab citizens and refugees produced by the Iraq war....
سلاسل ذهب
Character: مهيوب
A gold salesman is a professional in his field where he deals with plenty of women and takes advantage of them along the way, resulting in unpleasant consequences....
الزير سالم
Character: التبع اليماني - ضيف شرف
Chronicling the Basus War between two Arabian tribes and their allies, the drama follows the emergence of renowned Arab figure, Al Zeer Salem....
سألوني
Character:
They Asked Me is an entertainment program and contains a variety of useful paragraphs and provides information and facts in a fun and interesting narrative way, presented in the nineties of the last century, which is presented by the distinguished media Sherif Alami, They Asked Me is a well-known and distinctive program in Jordan, ancient and modern, and it has a great herbal "...
Movie Credits
The Extras
Character: Salem
Salem dreams of being an actor but is still working in a gas station, only his love for Nada can make things easier for him....
The Straner's Dust
Character:
The biopic of 19th century Syrian scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi who battled against the injustice in Syria during the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. His efforts actually managed to overthrow the Ottoman viceroy. However, he was banished to Cairo, only to continue his fight there....
Breeze of the Soul
Character:
A love story grows between a young man and a girl, there is a second person who loves the girl, and for her he tries to hang himself, so the lovers decide to sacrifice love and happiness to save a human soul, the lover is a simple young man, while the girl is a loving female, mixed in the depths of many worlds of childhood and innocence And intelligence, the girl marries the man she does not like, and by this she has lifted the gallows from his neck, in order to wrap her around her neck....
Solitaire
Character: Riad
Therese, the mayor's wife in a Lebanese village, joyfully prepares for an overnight visit of her daughter's suitor and his parents. She excitedly shares the happy news of the engagement with pictures of her beloved brother who was killed by a Syrian bomb 20 years ago and is still bizarrely present in every corner of her house. Only when the long-awaited guests are at her doorstep, she discovers they are Syrian; this engagement will only happen over Therese's dead body!...
Something Is Burning
Character: Ramzy
After the 1967 setback, Abu Ramzi is displaced from the Golan with his family, and he is tired in order to secure a livelihood and his wife who works in sewing helps him. As for the son Ramzi, he dreams of riches quickly and in the easiest way, which drives him to collide with his father, who dreams of a roof that shelter him through halal earnings....
That Which Remains
Character: يورام
Based on Ghassan Kanafani's novel, 'Returning to Haifa,' this film, set in 1967, centres on a Palestinian couple who return to the war-torn city to search for their young son Farhan, whom they were forced to abandon when fleeing Zionist acts of terrorism in 1948. Saeed and Atefeh's own house has even been taken over by a Polish Jewish family, who, it transpires, are holding Farhan hostage. It is up to the couple, with the assistance of Farhan's steely grandmother, to find a way to reclaim their ...
Sarab
Character:
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Sacrifices
Character:
As an elderly man on his deathbed looks to give his name to one of his newborn grandsons, he's unable to acknowledge any of them. The three boys grow up with no name in the Syrian mountains, as they struggle to survive in a war-torn country....
Nights of The Jackal
Character:
Syria, 1967, rumors of war. Abu Kamel, a peasant who farms tomatoes near Latakia, bullies his family. One by one, each rebels against him or finds a route to break away....
Rising Rain
Character:
Sabah is a creative writer who goes through the complexities of life in a city that pushes its children from its center to its outskirts where expatriates reside. He suffers from financial hardships, while a love story grows between a boy and a girl who meet at night in the rain....
The Half-Metre Incident
Character:
A journey in the world of the little employee Sobhi Halogi, a conservative, conservative woman, occupies the axis of his thinking. He seems to be an object, but we do not reveal his intimacy unless life has given us a special experience with him. Sobhi Halouji is confronted by a girl he encounters by coincidence, but fails to bear the spiritual expenses imposed on him by this relationship. The film reveals and exposes the model of this segment with all its contradictions, motives and aspirations...
The Penguin
Character:
A young woman lives alone in isolation in her home and experiences many events inside her imagination or in her dreams; however, the only real thing in her life is her little goldfish....