Kamel El Basha

Kamel El Basha or Kamel el-Bacha (Arabic: كامل الباشا‎) (born March 14, 1962 in East Jerusalem, Jordan is a Lebanese of Palestinian origin theater actor and director and film actor who won the 2017 Volpi Cup for Best Actor (masculine) during the 74th Venice International Film Festival for his role as Yasser Abdallah Salameh in The Insult (also known in Arabic: قضية رقم ٢٣‎, romanized: Qadiyya raqm 23, lit. 'Case No. 23') by the Lebanese film director Ziad Doueiri.[1][2] It was El Basha's first major role on screen, although he had appeared in a number of theatrical productions, actually also directing some of them, in addition to a handful of films in small roles.

He was born in al-Maliha (presently Malha), southeast of Jerusalem. He studied theatre in Baghdad, Iraq from 1979 to 1983. As a young Palestinian activist, El Basha was arrested by the Israeli authorities spending two years in prison. After his release, he acted in a great number of theatrical pieces, also writing some of them and directing almost 30 works on stage. His beginnings was with a hakawati theatrical group in his notable debut was in an Arabic version of Brecht's The Exception and the Rule. He was a writer and a translator of a number of theatrical works and appeared in a limited number of Palestinian dramas on television and on film. He is also a professor in Palestinian universities in the areas of the Palestinian National Authority. El Basha ran a number of workshops and seminars for young actors.

El Basha is married to the Palestinian actress and singer Reem Talhami. She has co-acted with her husband in a number of works like Ness Kiis Rasas (نص كيس رصاص), Al Arees (العريس) and Sahra Maqdisiyyah (سهرة مقدسية).