Kamel El Basha

Head of Jury

Kamel El Basha, born in Malha, southeast of Jerusalem, is an actor, director, writer and teacher from Palestine. He studied theatre from 1979 to 1983. As a young Palestinian activist, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities and imprisoned for two years. After his release he acted in a number of plays and directed almost 30 of them. His notable debut was with the Arabic version of Brecht’s The Exception and the Rule. He has also written and translated several plays for the stage, and appeared in Palestinian TV series and films including Muayad Alayan’s Love, Theft and Other Entanglements (2015), which was presented at the Berlinale. Ziad Doueiri’s gripping courtroom drama The Insult (2017, GFF) won Kamel El Basha the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his convincing portrayal of a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. He is currently the Artistic Director of Quds Art.

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