Hiam Abbass Named 2027 European World Cinema Achievement Honoree

Hiam Abbass will receive the 2027 European Achievement in World Cinema Award at the 39th European Film Awards in Athens in January.

The acclaimed Palestinian actress is being honored “for her astounding body of work.”

Abbass has been a prominent figure in European cinema since her first leading role in Ariane Mnouchkine’s La Nuit Miraculeuse in 1989. She has since appeared in more than 100 films in Palestinian, Arab and international productions, including Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor, Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, Julian Schnabel’s Miral, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, Aram and Tarzan Nasser’s Gaza Mon Amour, and Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36.

A two-time European Film Award nominee, Abbass was recognized for her performances in Eran Riklis’s The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree. The latter also earned her an Asia Pacific Screen Award.

Born in Nazareth to a Palestinian family displaced into exile in 1948, Abbass began her acting career at the Palestinian National Theatre El-Hakawati in East Jerusalem, which Israeli authorities frequently closed. During a European theater tour, she decided to relocate to London. Since the late 1980s, she has lived in Paris.

Abbass earned a nomination at the French Lumières Awards in 2018 for her performance in Philippe Van Leeuw’s In Syria. On television, she appeared in the Hulu series Ramy and played Marcia Roy, the wife of Brian Cox’s Logan Roy, in HBO’s Succession. Her role in the latter earned a Primetime Emmy nomination in 2023.

Abbass has also worked as a director. Her film Inheritance screened at festivals in Gijón and São Paulo and at Venice Days in 2012.

The 39th European Film Awards will take place on January 16, 2027.

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