{"id":705250,"date":"2025-12-26T15:51:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T12:51:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-12-26T15:51:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T12:51:25","slug":"mohammad-bakri-renowned-palestinian-actor-and-filmmaker-dies-at-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mohammad-bakri-renowned-palestinian-actor-and-filmmaker-dies-at-72\/","title":{"rendered":"Mohammad Bakri, Renowned Palestinian Actor and Filmmaker, Dies at 72"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tMohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.<\/p>\n

\n\tBakri was best known for Jenin, Jenin<\/em>, a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.<\/p>\n

\n\tBakri also acted in Cherien Dabis\u2019 2025 film All That\u2019s Left of You<\/em>, a drama about a Palestinian family through more than 76 years, alongside his sons, Adam and Saleh Bakri, who are also actors. The film has been shortlisted by the Academy Awards for the best international feature film.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the years, he made several films that spanned the spectrum of Palestinian experiences. He also acted in Hebrew, including at Israel\u2019s national theater in Tel Aviv, and app<\/a>eared in a number of famous Israeli films in the 1980s and 1990s. He studied at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\n

\n\tBakri, who was born in northern Israel and held Israeli citizenship, dabbled in both film and theater. His best-known one-man-show from 1986, The Pessoptimist<\/em>, based on the writings of Palestinian author Emile Habiby, focused on the intricacies and emotions of someone who has both Israeli and Palestinian identities.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the 1980s, Bakri played characters in mainstream Israeli films that humanized the Palestinian identity, including Beyond the Walls<\/em>, a seminal film about incarcerated Israelis and Palestinians, said Raya Morag, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in cinema and trauma.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe broke stereotypes about how Israelis looked at Palestinians, and allowing someone Palestinian to be regarded as a hero in Israeli society,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was a very brave person, and he was brave by standing to his ideals, choosing not to be conformist in any way, and paying the price in both societies,\u201d said Morag.<\/p>\n

\n\tBakri faced some pushback within Palestinian society for his cooperation with Israelis. After Jenin, Jenin<\/em>, he was plagued by almost two decades of court cases in Israel, where the film was seen as unbalanced and inciting.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2022, Israel\u2019s Supreme Court upheld a ban on the documentary, saying it defamed Israeli soldiers, and ordered Bakri to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to an Israeli military officer for defamation.<\/p>\n

\n\tJenin, Jenin<\/em> was a turning point in Bakri\u2019s career. In Israel, he became a polarizing figure and he never worked with mainstream Israeli cinema again, Morag said. \u201cHe was loyal to himself despite all the pressures from inside and outside,\u201d she added. \u201cHe was a firm voice that did not change during the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLocal media<\/a> quoted Bakri\u2019s family as saying he died Wednesday after suffering from heart and lung problems. His cousin, Rafic, told the Arabic news<\/a> site Al-Jarmaq that Bakri was a tenacious advocate of the Palestinians who used his works to express support for his people.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am certain that Abu Saleh will remain in the memory of Palestinian people everywhere and all people of the free world,\u201d he said, using Mohammed Bakri\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72. Bakri was best known for Jenin, Jenin, a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}