Mohammad Bakri (born 1953; ar, محمد بكري, he, מוחמד בכרי) is a Palestinian actor and film director.Biography
Mohammad Bakri Official Website.

Personal life

Bakri was born in the village of

Bi'ina Bi'ina or al-Bi'na (also el-Baneh) ( ar, البعنة) is an Arab town in the Northern District of Israel. It is located east of Akko. In 2003, Bi'ina merged with Majd al-Krum and Deir al-Asad to form the city of Shaghur, but was reinstated as a ...

in Israel. He went to elementary school in his hometown and received his secondary education in the nearby city of Akko. He studied acting and Arabic literature at Tel Aviv University in 1973 and graduated three years later. Bakri is married to Leila and together they have six children. His sons

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

Ziad Ziad (also transliterated as Ziyad, Zyad, Zeyad, or Zijad ar, زياد) is an Arabic given name and surname. Given name Actors * Zeyad Errafae'ie, Syrian television actor and voice actor Athletes * Zeyad Abdulrazak, Kuwaiti hurdler * Zeyad M ...

and

Saleh Bakri Saleh Bakri ( ar, صالح بكري, he, סאלח בכרי; born 1977) is an Israeli-born Palestinian film and theater actor. He began his career in the theater. He is the son of actor and film director Mohammad Bakri, brother of actors Ziad an ...

are also actors.

Acting and film career

Bakri began his professional acting career in with Habima Theatre in Tel Aviv, Haifa theater and

al-Kasaba Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque ( ar, القصبة مسرح وسينماتك) is a cinema in the city of Ramallah, West Bank, State of Palestine, Palestine. It was established in 1970 during Israeli Military Governorate, Israeli occupation for ...

theater in

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...

. His one-man plays, ''The Pessoptimist'' (1986), ''The Anchor'' (1991), ''

Season of Migration to the North ''Season of Migration to the North'' ( ar, موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال ) is a classic postcolonial Arabic novel by the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, published in 1966; it is the novel for which he is best known. It was first publis ...

'' (1993) and ''Abu Marmar'' (1999) were performed in Hebrew and Arabic. After a few years of acting in Palestinian and Israeli film, Bakri began to act in international films in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada and Italy. Bakri also directed two documentary films including the controversial ''

Jenin, Jenin ''Jenin, Jenin'' is a film directed by Mohammed Bakri, a prominent Palestinian actor and Israeli citizen, in order to portray what Bakri calls "the Palestinian truth" about the " Battle of Jenin", a clash between the Israeli army and Palestini ...

''.

Controversy

After

Operation Defensive Shield Operation "Defensive Shield" ( he, מִבְצָע חוֹמַת מָגֵן, ''Mivtza Homat Magen'', literally "Operation Shield Wall") was a large-scale military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces in 2002 during the Second Intifada ...

in April 2002, Bakri interviewed residents of the Jenin refugee camp and produced a film based on their testimony, ''Jenin, Jenin''. Some of the survivors described a massacre of hundreds of people. After three showings the film was banned by the Israeli Film Board, which claimed it was not a documentary as it showed only one side of the story. Nevertheless, Bakri showed the film at the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem cinematheques and Arab theaters such as Al-Midan in Haifa. Bakri petitioned the High Court of Justice for prohibiting the screening of the film on the grounds that it distorted the truth. After a long fight, the court rejected the censor's decision. In 2004, the Israeli High Court finally upheld its earlier overturn of the ban, but joined the Film Board in labeling the film a "propagandistic lie," based on Israeli sources which acknowledged only 52 Palestinian deaths, 38 of whom Israeli sources argued were armed fighters. In response to the court's criticism, Bakri stated that he had "seen hundreds of films that deny and ignore what happened to Palestinians, yet eople haven’tcomplained or tried to ban any film." In 2007, five soldiers who fought in the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 sued the cinematheques in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for screening the film in the midst of the ban, and sued Bakri for 2.5 million NIS for producing the film. In July 2008 Bakri was acquitted of the charges. ''Jenin-Jenin'' earned two awards: the best film award at the Carthage International Film Festival, 2002, and the International Prize for Mediterranean Documentary Filmmaking and Reporting. Israeli right-wing group

Im Tirtzu Im Tirtzu (Hebrew: אם תרצו, lit. 'If you will it') is a Zionist non-governmental organization based in Israel. Its name is derived from an epigraph appended to the frontispiece of Theodor Herzl's novel '' Altneuland'', 'if you wish it, it ...

organized a campaign against Bakri. Im Tirtzu opposed a production of Federico García Lorca's '' The House of Bernarda Alba'' in which Bakri played the role of Bernarda. The play was produced in 2012 at Tel Aviv's Tzavta Theater. Israel's Academy of the Performing Arts was behind the production. While refusing Im Tirtzu's request to intervene, Culture Minister

Limor Livnat Limor Livnat (; born 22 September 1950) is an Israeli former politician. She served as a member of the Knesset for Likud between 1992 and 2015, and was Minister of Communications, Minister of Education, and Minister of Culture & Sport. Biogr ...

criticized the judgment of the theater's administration.

Filmography

Actor

Director

Awards and recognition

* Award for the Best Actor for the role in ''Private'' in

Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema The Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI, es, Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente) is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the month of April, in the city of ...

2005IMDb
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Best Actor Award Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The term most often refers to the ...

for ''Private'' by Saverio Costanzo, Locarno International Film Festival 2004 * Palestine Prize for Cinema 1999 Ramallah * Award for the Best Actor for the role in ''Haifa'' by Rashid Masharawi, Valencia Festival 1997 * Award for the Best Actor for the role in ''Beyond the Walls II'' by Uri Barabash, Valencia Festival 1994 * Award for the Best Actor for the role in ''Beyond the Walls'' by Uri Barabash, Israel 1984 * Award for the best actor for the role in ''Season of Migration to the North'', by Tayeb Salih, adapted and directed by

Ouriel Zohar Ouriel Zohar (born 1952), is an Israeli and French theater director, playwright, poet and translator from French to Hebrew. Professor at the Department of Humanities & Arts at the Technion University, created the Technion theater in 1986. Has be ...

, in the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, Israel 1993.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bakri, Mohammad 1953 births Living people Arab-Israeli film directors Israeli film directors Israeli film producers Israeli male film actors Israeli male stage actors Tel Aviv University alumni