Hiam Abbass
Birthday: Born in 1960-11-30 in Nazareth, Israel
Deathday: Alive
Hiam Abbass (born November 30, 1960), sometimes spelled as Hiyam Abbas, is a Palestinian and French filmmaker, actress and director who gained prominence for her role as Marcia Roy in the HBO drama series Succession (2018-2023).
TV Credits
Oussekine
Character: Aïcha
An examination of the terrible true events of December 5, 1986, that led to the death of a young student, Malik Oussekine. Centred on his family’s fight for justice, the series explores the enormous impact this high-profile case had on French society....
The State
Character: Umm Salamah
The experiences of four British men and women who leave their lives behind to join ISIS in Syria....
The Promise
Character: Old Jawda
The story of a young woman who goes to present-day Israel/Palestine determined to find out about her soldier grandfather's involvement in the final years of Palestine under the British mandate....
The Red Tent
Character: Queen Re-Nefer
Her name is Dinah. In the Bible her life is only hinted at during a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis. Told through Dinah's eloquent voice, this sweeping miniseries reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood. Dinah's tale begins with the story of her mothers: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah, the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a hard-wo...
The Old Man
Character: Abbey Chase
Dan Chase absconded from the CIA decades ago and now lives off the grid. When an assassin arrives and tries to take Chase out, the old operative learns that to ensure his future he now must reconcile his past....
The OA
Character: Khatun
Prairie Johnson, blind as a child, comes home to the community she grew up in with her sight restored. Some hail her a miracle, others a dangerous mystery, but Prairie won’t talk with the FBI or her parents about the seven years she went missing....
Ramy
Character: Maysa Hassan
Ramy, the son of Egyptian immigrants, is on a spiritually conflicting journey in his New Jersey neighborhood, pulled between his Muslim community that thinks life is a constant test, his millennial friends who think life is full of endless possibilities, and a God who's always watching....
Succession
Character: Marcia Roy
Follow the lives of the Roy family as they contemplate their future once their aging father begins to step back from the media and entertainment conglomerate they control....
Movie Credits
Paradise Now
Character: Said's Mother
Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv....
The Nativity Story
Character: Anna
Mary and Joseph make the hard journey to Bethlehem for a blessed event in this retelling of the Nativity story. This meticulously researched and visually lush adaptation of the biblical tale follows the pair on their arduous path to their arrival in a small village, where they find shelter in a quiet manger and Jesus is born....
Conversations with My Gardener
Character: The gardener's wife
A successful artist, weary of Parisian life and on the verge of divorce, returns to the country to live in his childhood house. He needs someone to make a real vegetable garden again out of the wilderness it has become. The gardener happens to be a former schoolfriend. A warm, fruitful conversation starts between the two men....
Hellraiser
Character: Menaker
A young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings from another dimension....
The Syrian Bride
Character: Amal
In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probat...
Free Zone
Character: Leila
Rebecca, an American who has been living in Jerusalem for a few months now, has just broken off her engagement. She gets into a cab driven by Hanna, an Israeli. But Hanna is on her way to Jordan, to the Free Zone, to pick up a large sum of money....
Lemon Tree
Character: Selma Zidane
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?...
Munich
Character: Marie Claude Hamshari
During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack....
The Visitor
Character: Mouna Khalil
A college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment....
Amreeka
Character: Raghda Halaby
Eager to provide a better future for her son, Fadi, divorcée Muna Farah leaves her Palestinian homeland and takes up residence in rural Illinois -- just in time to encounter the domestic repercussions of America's disastrous war in Iraq. Now, the duo must reinvent their lives with some help from Muna's sister, Raghda, and brother-in-law, Nabeel....
Spy(ies)
Character: Wafa
In London, an airport baggage handler is forced by French and British intelligence agents to seduce the wife of a businessman with ties to Syrian terrorists....
We Need a Vacation
Character: La mère de Lucien et de José
It is the end of the school year for the children of a dormitory town. Most of them leave the place for a vacation with their parents but not Lucien and Adama whose parents can't afford the expense. While the big brothers of the housing estate are busy breaking the law Lulu and Adama manage to sneak into their neighbors' trailer. The two stowaways are elated until they reach their destination: a nudist camp...!...
Miral
Character: Hidi Husseini
A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict....
Disengagement
Character: Hiam
A political drama centered around Israel's pullout from the occupied Gaza strip, in which a French woman of Israeli origin comes to the Gaza Strip to find her long ago abandoned daughter....
I Am Slave
Character: Laila
Based on the real-life experiences of Mende Nazer, the story unfolds as twelve-year-old Malia, daughter of champion wrestler Bah, is abducted from her Sudanese village in the Nubar Mountains by pro-government Arab militia and sold into slavery to a woman in Khartoum, who beats her for touching her daughter. After six years she is sent to London, where her name is changed, but her miserable life of servitude continues. Her passport is taken and she is told that her father will die if she goes to ...
Human Zoo
Character: Mina
In Marseille, the young Serbian-Albanian Adria Shala is an illegal immigrant traumatized by her past. Every now and then Adria recalls her life in Kosovo, when she was saved from rape by a deserter called Srdjan Vasiljevic in 1999. They move to Belgrade where Srdjan becomes a gangster, dealing weapons and becoming an assassin. Adria learns how to shoot and helps Srdjan with his work at first, becoming his mistress later....
The Feelings Factory
Character: Professor Sterne
A successful woman searches for romance by speed dating in this drama. Eloise has a great job and a great education, but she's looking for love. Can a couple of minutes be the key to finding true love?...
Pomegranates and Myrrh
Character: Umm Habib
A free spirited woman dancer, Kamar, finds herself the lonely wife of a prisoner, Zaid, and away from everything she loves until she returns to the dance, defying societys taboos. At the dance Kamar is confronted with Kais, a Palestinian returnee. Sparks fly between Kamar and Kais, creating more than a passionate, emotional dance for the both of them. Matters become even more complicated when Zaid's sentence is extended. Kamar's life is thrown into turmoil as she becomes increasingly attached to...
The Source
Character: Fatima
A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe....
Persecution
Character: Marie
A solitary man and his partner share a tense love/hate relationship. Their lives are disrupted when a stranger enters, gradually insinuating himself into their world. The stranger’s persistence creates strain, leaving the man with lingering questions about his motivations and the impact on his life....
A Loving Father
Character: Salma
Writer Léo Shepherd lives in rural France together with his daughter Virginia, who manages his affairs. One day Virginia gets a call from the Swedish Academy. Léo has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His estranged son Paul tries desperately to contact him, but is denied every time by his sister. When Léo starts traveling to the ceremony in Stockholm by motor bike, Paul decides to follow him and try to speak to him. Clearly Léo doesn't want to be followed, starts speeding and gets involved in ...
The Demon Stirs
Character: Rim
Anne Cestac accepts the obvious: her husband Julien, in his forties, has fallen madly in love with another woman. Annoyed, Anne sets out to find potential lovers....
Satin Rouge
Character: Lilia
After the death of her husband, Lilia's life revolves solely around her teenage daughter, Salma. Whilst looking for Salma late one night, Lilia stumbles upon a belly dance cabaret and though initially reserved and taken aback by the culture of the place, Lilia gets consistently drawn back to it. She befriends one of the belly dancers and is encouraged into dancing for the audience. Lilia also starts a romance with one of the cabaret's musicians, who unbeknown to both of them, is also romancing S...
A Bottle in the Gaza Sea
Character: Intessar
Tai is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this hars...
The Gate of the Sun
Character: Um Youness
Yousry Nasrallah's powerful adaptation of Lebanese writer Elias Khoury's epic novel of fifty years of Palestinian dispossession, exile, and resistance. The film follows the flight of Younes, his wife Nahila, and those around them, from their village in northern Palestine to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Some vow to continue the struggle, most simply struggle to survive. Unsparingly detailing the impact of the nakba (disaster) on Palestinian life and society and the refugees' often-contentious relat...
Haifa
Character: Oum Said
Haifa, nicknamed after the city of his love and hope, goes around and comes around in a Palestinian refugee camp. Although he is everybody's fool, there are many things that only he knows. He is closely related to the family of Abu Said, a former policeman who gains new hopes from the political developments. Oum Said, his wife, hangs her hope on the imminent release of their eldest son, Said, from jail. She tries to find him a bride to secure things for the future. Their youngest son, Siad, is c...
Inheritance
Character: Samira
A Palestinian family living in the north of Galilee gathers to celebrate the wedding of one of their daughters, as war rages between Israel and Lebanon. Internal conflicts explode between the family - secrets are revealed and lies are unmasked. The battles between different family members become as merciless as the outside war once their father falls into a coma and inches toward death....
Games of Clouds and Rain
Character: Blanche
Li Qin leaves her temperamental husband and unknowingly provides a trail for a detective who has been, for months, secretly devoted to her. In the wake of their one-way chase, a Chinese businessman wanders around town; two magicians attempt to overcome a crisis, and a waitress is desperate for stability. Some will find what they are looking for, some will find each other, and some simply will not....
Bye Bye Tiberias
Character: Self
In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village to follow her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village and questions for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her chosen exile and the way the women in their family influenced both their lives....
May in the Summer
Character: Nadine
A bride-to-be is forced to reevaluate her life when she reunites with her family in Jordan and finds herself confronted with the aftermath of her parents’ divorce....
Everyday Is a Holiday
Character: Hala
It's Independence Day in Lebanon: three women who've never met before are on the same bus heading to visit a prison situated in a remote area of the country. Traveling through an arid landscape littered with mines and decapitated dreams, the journey transforms into the women's quest for their own independence....
Tar Angel
Character: Naïma Kasmi
Newly-arrived Ahmed tries to integrate his family to the canadian society, while attempting to control his son's life orientation....
Mateo Falcone
Character: La madre / Mother
Corsica in the 19th century. An isolated farm at the edge of some scrub. Left to alone by his parents, Fortunato must deal with a fugitive who asks the boy to hide him in exchange for a gold coin. From then on, the boy finds himself caught up in a world of male violence....
Do Not Forget Me Istanbul
Character:
Several directors from countries of the region were invited to create stories taking place in and around the beautiful city of Istanbul, in the vein of “Paris, je t’aime” and “New York, I love you”. They come together to remind viewers that Istanbul’s history does not belong only to the people of Turkey....
Rock the Casbah
Character: Aicha
The whole family is reunited when Sofia comes back for his father's funeral. Quickly, inner problems are revealed....
Peace After Marriage
Character: Amani
Desperate for companionship, a lonely, young Palestinian-American man agrees to marry an Israeli woman in need of a Green Card, forcing them to re-examine their respective cultural and familial traditions....
A Police Romance
Character: Faty
In a small police station, Lieutenant Emilie Carange finds herself sexually attracted to Jamil Messaouden, a young rookie officer. When an old Algerian woman reports that she's seen drug dealers operating in the neighborhood, they find themselves in over their heads in an investigation. Night after night, Emilie's desire grows. The drug investigation gets out of hand and so does Emilie......
The Bag of Flour
Character: Yasmine
Based on a true story, this beautifully-shot epic traces the life of Sarah, from her early years in a Catholic orphanage in 1970s Belgium, through her rebellious, poverty-stricken teens in a village in the Atlas mountains of Morocco....
Nadia and Sarra
Character: Nadia
Nadia is a 45 year old female professor at the University of Tunis. She is married and has a daughter of 18, Sarra. For some time, Nadia has problems in her marriage also symptoms of menopause are inseparable. The physical and psychological state deteriorates inexorably Nadia....
Habibti
Character: Iman
A veiled Arab woman, steeped in tradition, journeys to London to visit her estranged daughter only to find her living with a black boyfriend.....
Insidious: The Red Door
Character: Professor Armagan
To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh Lambert and a college-aged Dalton Lambert must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family's dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door....
No Beast. So Fierce
Character:
In the aftermath of a bloody gang war, the youngest daughter of the victorious Arab clan begins to plot against the men of her family. She kills brothers, nephews, friends and enemies, until she is the undisputed boss of the Berlin underworld. But on her path to the top, she has made powerful enemies......
De guerre lasse
Character: Raïssa
Alex, the son of a gang boss from Marseilles, joins the French Foreign Legion to avoid a hit put out on him by the Corsican Mafia. Four years later, Alex deserts and returns to Marseilles to get back together with Katia, his former girlfriend. But in the city, relationships have changed......
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Character: Bithia
The defiant leader Moses rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues....
Dégradé
Character: Eftikhar
A hot summer's day in the Gaza Strip. Today the electricity is on. Christine’s beauty salon is heaving with female clients: a bride-to-be, a pregnant woman, a bitter divorcée, a devout woman and a pill-popping addict. But their day of leisure is disrupted when gunfire breaks out across the street. A gangland family has stolen the lion from Gaza’s only zoo, and Hamas has decided it’s time to settle old scores. Stuck in the salon, with the prospect of death drawing ever nearer, the women start t...
Dawn of the World
Character: Mastour's mother
The Mesopotamian Marshes, at the delta of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in the south of Iraq. This is where Mastour and Zahra grow up. Shortly after their marriage, Mastour and Zahra are forced to separate when the Gulf War breaks out. On the battlefield, Mastour befriends Riad, a young soldier from Baghdad. Mortally wounded, Mastour makes Riad promise to protect Zahra when the war is over. When Riad arrives in the village, he falls deeply in love with Zahra. But unable to bear the loss of he...
Kandisha
Character: Mona Bendrissi
Shattered by the loss of her child, Nyla Jayde, a brilliant criminal defense attorney, takes on a case involving a 14th century Moroccan legend, a vengeful spirit named Kandisha....
The Sense of Wonder
Character: Dr. Mélanie Ferenza
Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought....
Last Breath
Character:
In a kind of philosophical dialogue, Doctor Augustin Masset and renowned writer Fabrice Toussaint discuss life and death… A whirlwind of encounters in which the doctor is the guide and the writer, his passenger, led to confront his own fears and anxieties....
Blade Runner 2049
Character: Freysa
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years....
Foreign Body
Character: Madame Bertaud
In the turbulent aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, young Samia flees her homeland. She braves hostile seas in the crossing to France, but once there she finds that her struggles have only just begun. With no friends, no family, and — most crucially — no immigration papers, Samia has to figure out how to make a life and a living in a foreign land. She meets a young man, Imed, and soon finds work in the employ of the elegant Leila. But her presence in Leila's middle-class household triggers a ...
I Still Hide to Smoke
Character: Fatima
Α tragi-comedy about 9 women of different ages and various backgrounds that gather in an Algerian hammam to talk about their lives....
Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest
Character: Jenane (Voice)
Raised on tales of a Djinn fairy princess, Azur, a young Frenchman goes to North Africa in search of the sprite, only to discover that his close childhood friend, Asmar, an Arab youth whose mother raised both boys also seeks the genie....
In Syria
Character: Oum Yazan
A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home....
Carnivores
Character: Amel, la mère
At the dawn of her thirties, Mona tries relentlessly to take off as an actress. Time passes and proposals do not arrive. Short of resources, she is forced to move to Sam, her younger sister....
The Limits of Control
Character: Driver
A mysterious stranger works outside the law and keeps his objectives hidden, trusting no one. While his demeanor is paradoxically focused and dreamlike all at once, he embarks on a journey that not only takes him across Spain, but also through his own consciousness....
Nasser's Republic: The Making of Modern Egypt
Character: Self - Narrator (voice)
In 1952 a young Egyptian colonel named Gamal Abdel Nasser led a coup that became a revolution, winning the support of millions of his countrymen. Over the next 18 years he challenged Western hegemony abroad, confronted Islamism at home, established the region’s first military authoritarian regime, and faced deep divisions among the Arabs....
When Arabs Danced
Character: Self
Writer, director, and journalist Jawad Rhalib presents a timely exploration of Muslim identity in relation to artistic expression and harmful stereotypes, through archival footage, interviews, and evocative performances....
Ali, Rabiaa and the Others
Character: Rabiaa
In the 70s, Ali, Rabiaa, Driss, Abdellah and Hamid are a group of friends grow up in a heavy world of drugs, pop, politics ans sex. Rabiaa is a local girl whom they all share whenever the urge comes. Ali, accidentally kills a policeman and sent to prison. When he is released 20 years later, the group is just a memory. Ali relives the past and faces up the today's different reality with its disillusions ans responsibilities....
Brother
Character: Madame Miroun
Because he wanted to protect his little brother, Teddy, a young man without a history, is accused of the murder of his father and sent to a closed educational center, waiting for his trial for parricide. He then plunges into a brutal universe of which he does not know the rules....
Bread
Character:
A mother living in the French countryside bicycles into town to buy a baguette for her family, and makes a dramatic discovery....
The Swallows of Kabul
Character: Mussarat (voice)
Summer 1998—Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn....
Sofa So Good
Character:
In the streets of New York, a young woman is relentlessly, stubbornly and desperately looking for a sofa. This is a funny story with some touching moments about holding on and letting go....
Minor Revelations
Character:
"The choice of each period is intimate, as each period awakens a particular emotion in me. This emotion reflects what is around me, not everyone is able to recognise it -- that is the risk I take. I think that this is good enough reason to make a film that will make visible small yet revealing things in differeent ways. I believe in tropisms and that is what interests me in this film." -- Marie Vermillard [taken from London Film Festival 2006 catalogue]...
In Vitro
Character: Dunia
Decades after an eco-disaster engulfs the biblical city of Bethlehem, two scientists from different generations discuss memory, exile and nostalgia in this symbolic speculative fiction....
Gaza Mon Amour
Character: Siham
In Gaza, 60-year-old fisherman Issa has been secretly in love with Siham, a widow who works at the market. One day, the discovery of an ancient phallic statue of Apollo in his fishing net changes his life. With newfound confidence, he decides to approach Siham but problems arise when authorities become involved with this mysterious and potent treasure....
The Wedding Guest
Character: Jénane (Voice)
...
Blanche
Character: La voisine
Chloé, a young baby sitter, must look after Blanche, the daughter of Agnes and François, for the first time. Once the couple has left, Chloé falls asleep in front of TV. When she wakes up, she is horrified to discover that the baby is no longer there....
Sur les traces de Mélanie
Character: Madeleine
Rachid learned of Mélanie's accidental death. He decides to follow in his footsteps by taking his friend's last walk again. That day, Mélanie had met her sister Madeleine, for a last face-to-face meeting. What happened? What will Rachid discover?...
When the Cat's Away
Character: Une femme dans la cour
When Chloe, a young Parisian, decides to take a long-overdue vacation, she has to find someone to look after Gris-Gris, her beloved cat. Everyone, including her gay male roommate, refuses to help her, but she finally makes an arrangement with the elderly Madame Renée, who often watches over other peoples' cats and dogs. However, when Chloe comes back, Madame Renée tells her that unfortunately the cat has been lost, and the unlucky owner goes on a search for her dear animal friend. While looking ...
Keepers of the Covenant: Making 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'
Character: Self
An in-depth documentary on the making of Ridley Scott's "Exodus: Gods and Kings," featuring interviews with the cast and crew. Featured in the Deluxe Edition Blu-ray set....
Night
Character: Mother (voice)
Night has to trick the mother of the missing child into sleeping to save her soul....
Raddem
Character:
A young woman searches through war-torn and rebuilding Beirut for a man who took pictures of her home. A home she has only ever known in ruins....
Common Ground: Under Construction Notes
Character: Self
The making of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel is chronicled through an observational approach that captures the creative and logistical challenges of filming a deeply interconnected narrative across four continents. Directed by Carlos Armella and Pedro González-Rubio, the documentary reveals Iñárritu’s commitment to authenticity and cultural sensitivity, from collaborating with local actors and communities to meticulously recreating environments. Through behind-the-scenes footage and the dir...