Palestinian actress and director Hiam Abbass. (Credit: Norman Wong)
She is one of the greatest actresses of our time. We hesitate to add the word "Arab" to this sentence. Hiam Abbass, although viscerally attached to the Palestine of her roots, refuses to reduce her identity to any one label.Despite the catastrophes her people, her loved ones and her own parents have experienced since the Nakba, Abbass rejects the vision of the world as a set of pieces folded over one another, preferring to see it as a single entity composed of a thousand and one nuances.On screen, whether in unflinching psychological dramas like "Paradise Now" by Hany Abu-Assad or "Inheritance," which she herself directed, or in blockbuster series like "Succession," where she plays a leading role, the actress has deconstructed the stereotypes associated with Arab women, piece by piece.Role after...
She is one of the greatest actresses of our time. We hesitate to add the word "Arab" to this sentence. Hiam Abbass, although viscerally attached to the Palestine of her roots, refuses to reduce her identity to any one label.Despite the catastrophes her people, her loved ones and her own parents have experienced since the Nakba, Abbass rejects the vision of the world as a set of pieces folded over one another, preferring to see it as a single entity composed of a thousand and one nuances.On screen, whether in unflinching psychological dramas like "Paradise Now" by Hany Abu-Assad or "Inheritance," which she herself directed, or in blockbuster series like "Succession," where she plays a leading role, the actress has deconstructed the stereotypes associated with Arab women, piece by piece.Role after...