Personal life

Hiam Abbass was born into a Muslim family in Nazareth, Israel. She was raised in the Arab village of Deir Hanna.

During the filming of the Steven Spielberg film Munich, Abbass lived in a hotel with the Arab and Israeli actors for three months. During that time, they had many discussions that "helped both sides grow closer." In an interview in 2006, Abbass said, "I still remember how difficult it was for the Arab actors to manhandle the Israeli actors in the first scene where the Israeli national team is taken hostage."

Film career

Abbass is known for her roles in Satin Rouge (2002), Haifa (1996), Paradise Now (2005), The Syrian Bride (2004), Free Zone (2005), Dawn of the World (2008), The Visitor (2008), Lemon Tree (2008), Every Day is a Holiday (2009) and Amreeka (2009). In Spielberg's film, depicting the response to the Munich Massacre, she also served as a dialect and acting consultant.

She directed two short films, Le Pain (2001), and La Danse éternelle (2004). She portrays humanitarian Hind al-Husseini in Julian Schnabel's film Miral (2010), based on the life of Husseini and her orphanage.

In 2002, she appeared in Satin Rouge by Raja Amari, a film about the self-discovery of a middle aged Tunisian widow. She also a similar role in The Syrian Bride, about a Druze woman eager to break down barriers.

Abbass appeared in the French films "Le sac de farine" and "Le temps de la balle".

In 2008, she played the mother of an illegal Syrian immigrant in Thomas McCarthy's movie The Visitor, and the mother of an Iraqi soldier in Abbas Fahdel's film Dawn of the World.

Also in 2008, she played the principal role in Israeli director Eran Riklis's film Lemon Tree (Etz Limon in Hebrew). For this role, she won Best Performance by an Actress at the 2008 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. In Jim Jarmusch's 2009 film The Limits of Control, in the role of Driver, she recites in Classical Arabic one of the film's leitmotif-phrases, "He who thinks he is bigger than the rest must go to the cemetery. There he will see what life really is."

Abbass also appears in A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2011), a French-Québéecois-Israeli film produced by Thierry Binisti. It is based upon the young adult novel Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza by Valérie Zenatti. She plays the role of Naïm's mother.

In 2012, she was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

She made her directorial feature film debut with The Inheritance in 2012.

Filmography

Actress

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1989	La nuit miraculeuse		Ariane Mnouchkine	TV Movie
1993	Antoine Rives, juge du terrorisme	Jacqueline Tabet	Philippe Lefebvre	TV Series (1 Episode : "L'affaire JBN")
1994	3000 scénarios contre un virus	A client	Cédric Klapisch	TV Series (1 Episode : "Poisson rouge")
1996	When the Cat's Away (1996 film)	Woman in the courtyard	Cédric Klapisch (2)
	Haifa	Oum Said	Rashid Masharawi
1998	Raddem		Danielle Arbid	Short
	Vivre au paradis		Bourlem Guerdjou
	Venise est une femme	Aïcha's Mother	Jean-Pierre Vergne	TV Movie
	Histoire naturelle		Karim Boulila	Short
2000	Mix-cité		Christophe Leprêtre	TV Movie
	Ali, Rabiaa et les autres	Rabiaa	Ahmed Boulane
2001	Ligne 208	Khaled's Mother	Bernard Dumont
	Le pain		Hiam Abbass	Short
	Le mariage en papier	Aunt Rabiaa	Stéphanie Duvivier	Short
	Tar Angel (L'ange de goudron)	Naïma Kasmi	Denis Chouinard
2002	Fais-moi des vacances	Lucien & José's Mother	Didier Bivel
	Satin rouge	Lilia	Raja Amari
	A Loving Father	Salma	Jacob Berger
2003	Pierre et Farid	Farid's Mother	Michel Favart	TV Movie
	Noctambules	Lonely Woman	Pascal Tessaud	Short
2004	The Gate of Sun	Um Youness	Yousry Nasrallah
	The Syrian Bride	Amal	Eran Riklis	Nominated - Ophir Award for Best Actress Nominated - European Film Award for Best Actress
	Nadia et Sarra	Nadia	Moufida Tlatli
2005	Paradise Now	Said's Mother	Hany Abu-Assad
	Sur les traces de Mélanie	Madelaine	Laetitia Arlix	Short
	Free Zone	Leila	Amos Gitai	Nominated - Ophir Award for Best Supporting Actress
	Le démon de midi	Rim	Marie-Pascale Osterrieth
	Munich	Marie Claude Hamshari	Steven Spielberg
2006	Petites révélations		Marie Vermillard
	Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest	Jénane's Voice	Michel Ocelot
	The Nativity Story	Anna	Catherine Hardwicke
2007	Conversations with My Gardener	The gardener's wife	Jean Becker
	Disengagement	Hiam	Amos Gitai (2)
	The Visitor	Mouna	Thomas McCarthy	Federazione Italiana Cinema d'Essai - Acting Nominated - International Cinephile Society Awards - Best Supporting Actress Nominated - Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cast Nominated - Gotham Awards for Best Ensemble Cast
2008	Béthune sur Nil	Farah	Jérôme Foulon	TV Movie
	La fabrique des sentiments	Professor Sterne	Jean-Marc Moutout
	Lemon Tree	Salma Zidane	Eran Riklis (2)	Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actress Ophir Award for Best Actress Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema - Best Actress Federazione Italiana Cinema d'Essai - Acting Nominated - European Film Award for Best Actress
	Un roman policier	Fati	Stéphanie Duvivier (2)
	Dawn of the World	Mastour's mother	Abbas Fahdel
	Fatoush	The woman	Hisham Abdel Khalek	Short
	Kandisha	Mona Bendrissi	Jerome Cohen-Olivar
	Al-mor wa al rumman	Umm Habib	Najwa Najjar
	Blanche	The neighbour	Eric Griffon du Bellay	Short
2009	Amreeka	Raghda Halaby	Cherien Dabis
	Espion(s)	Wafa	Nicolas Saada
	Human Zoo	Mina	Rie Rasmussen
	The Limits of Control	The Driver	Jim Jarmusch
	Persécution	Marie	Patrice Chéreau
	Chaque jour est une fête	Hala	Dima El-Horr
2010	Suite parlée	The Ants	Joël Brisse Marie Vermillard (2)
	Clichés		Nadine Naous	Short
	Histoires de vies	Zineb	Julien Sicard	TV Series (1 Episode : "Des intégrations ordinaires")
	Miral	Hind al-Husseini	Julian Schnabel
	Le temps de la balle	Hana	Hervé Jakubowicz	Short
	I Am Slave		Gabriel Range	TV Movie
	Habibti	Iman	Nour Wazzi	Short
2011	The Promise	Old Jawda	Peter Kosminsky	TV Mini-Series (4 Episodes)
	The Source	Fatima	Radu Mihăileanu
	Do Not Forget Me Istanbul		Hany Abu-Assad (2) Stefan Arsenijević Aida Begić Eric Nazarian
	A Bottle in the Gaza Sea	Intessar	Thierry Binisti
2012	Le sac de farine	Yasmine	Kadija Leclere
	Inheritance	Samira	Hiam Abbass (2)
2013	Les jeux des nuages et de la pluie	Blanche	Benjamin de Lajarte
	May in the Summer	Nadine	Cherien Dabis (2)
	Rock the Casbah	Aicha	Laïla Marrakchi
	Samarkande	The Death	Christophe Arnould	Short
	Peace After Marriage	Amani	Bandar & Ghazi Albuliwi
2014	De guerre lasse	Raïssa	Olivier Panchot
	Nothing Escapes My Eyes	Women	David Krippendorff	Short
	The Red Tent	Queen Re-Nefer	Roger Young
	Exodus: Gods and Kings	Bithiah	Ridley Scott
2015	Dégradé	Eftikhar	Arab Nasser and Tarzan Nasser

Director

Year	Title	Actors	Notes
2001	Le pain	Jules Sitruk, Zinedine Soualem	Short Nominated - Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film - Best Short Film
2004	La danse éternelle	Gamil Ratib, Françoise Bertin	Short Also Writer
2012	Inheritance	Hafsia Herzi, Ali Suliman, Ashraf Barhom, Clara Khoury, Makram Khoury, Tom Payne	Also Writer Nominated - São Paulo International Film Festival - Best Feature Film
2015	Jerusalem, I Love You

[ Source: Wikipedia ]