Betty Taoutel | |
---|---|
Born | Beirut, Lebanon |
Alma mater | Lebanese University |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1998–present |
Betty Taoutel is a Lebanese actress, playwright, and director in the theatre, on film, and in television. [1]
Taoutel wrote and directed numerous plays such as The Last House in Gemmayzé, Passport No. 10452, Crime Scene, and The Wednesday in the Middle of the Week. [2] Her play, The Wednesday in the Middle of the Week, which was inspired by one of the most important social events in Lebanese society, the wedding, ran for several weeks in the Théâtre Monnot in Beirut. [3]
Her play, Passport No. 10452, was presented in Arabic and French in 2013 as part of the Arab World Festival of Montreal [4] and played in Lebanon, Greece, and South Africa. [5]
Taoutel has starred in several Lebanese films, including Sophie Boutros' Solitare , [6] which premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival. [7] [8] In 2022, she starred in Lara Saba's All Roads Lead To Rome, which had its world premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival. [9] [10] [11] In 2023, she starred in Mira Shaib's Arzé which was selected to premiere in the Main Competition of the Cairo International Film Festival. [12]
On television, she became a household name when she became member of the jury on the LBCI pan-Arab hit, Star Academy. [13] [14]
She has also served on several festival juries, including the 41st edition of the Cairo International Film Festival in 2019. [15]
SuperStar was an Arabic television show based on the popular British show Pop Idol created by Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment & developed by Fremantle Media. The show unites the Arab community by democratically choosing the next singing sensation. The show is broadcast worldwide on Future TV, a Lebanese television station. It is also the first Idol franchise to feature contestants from multiple countries.
Star Academy Arab World or Star Academy Arabia, is a pan-Arab televised talent show, which has aired since 2003. The show features a group of young male and female candidates who are selected from a pan-Arab pool of more than three-thousand and are sequestered for four months in "The Academy," a four-story building in Lebanon, where they live, train, and compete against one another every week. The show became an instant success and an everyday much-watched event across the Arab world.
The culture of Lebanon and the Lebanese people emerged from various civilizations over thousands of years. It was home to the Phoenicians and was subsequently conquered and occupied by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks and the French. This variety is reflected in Lebanon's diverse population, composed of different religious groups, and features in the country's festivals, literature, artifacts, cuisine and architecture of Lebanon. Tourism in Lebanon is popular with periods of interruption during conflict.
Nadine Labaki is a Lebanese and Canadian actress, director, and activist. Labaki first came into the spotlight as an actress in the early 2000s. Her filmmaking career began in 2007 after the release of her debut film, Caramel, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. She is known for demonstrating everyday aspects of Lebanese life and covering a range of political issues such as war, poverty, and feminism. She is the first female Arab director to be nominated for an Oscar in the category for Best Foreign Language Film for third directorial effort, Capernaum (2018).
Télé Liban is the first Lebanese public television network, owned by the Lebanese government. It was a result of a merger of the privately run Compagnie Libanaise de Télévision (CLT) and Télé-Orient. TL is the current Lebanese member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Shatha Amjad Al-Hassoun, better known as Shatha Hassoun, is a Moroccan-Iraqi singer who rose to fame as the winner of the 4th season of the pan-Arab television talent show Star Academy Arab World.
The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian Roy Armes, is the only other cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema. Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced more than 500 films.
Ricardo Karam is a Lebanese television presenter, producer, talk-show host, author and public speaker. Over the years, he has created several shows, series and documentaries, and founded RK Productions which has taken charge of producing all his projects, as well as Peacomms and TAKREEM, TAKREEM AMERICA and TAKminds.
Eliane Raheb is a documentary filmmaker and director from Lebanon. She made her debut as a director with her 2012 film, Layali Bala Noom.
Saba Ahmed Soliman Mubarak El Siouf is a Jordanian actress and producer. She graduated from Yarmouk University in 2001 with a bachelor's degree in Theater acting and Directing. In 1998, she started her acting career with her role in the Jordanian TV series directed by Mohamed Azizia Qamar wa Sahar. Since then, Mubarak has been part of many important TV dramas and films such as Balqis, Moga Harra, Al Ahd, the three seasons of Hekayat Banat from 2012 to 2017, the Price, Agent Hamilton: But Not If It Concerns Your Daughter and the Guest: Aleppo to Istanbul. She also had her first cinematic role in the Jordanian film Safar Al-Ajneha directed by Tha’er Mousa in 2003. Then she starred in several Jordanian films until her Egyptian cinema breakthrough, which came after her participation in Mohamed Amin's film Bentein Men Misr. She is also the daughter of the Palestinian plastic artist Hanan Al-Agha.
Mahbas (Solitaire) is a Lebanese romantic, comedy movie directed by Sophie Boutros and produced by Nadia Eliewat; Both Boutros and Eliewat are the film writers. The film premiered in the Dubai International Film Festival in 2016 and released in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait, and Palestine in 2017. The film revolves around the story of a Lebanese mother who has developed a deep hatred towards Syrians as she lost her brother to a tragic incident during the Lebanese-Syrian war. The memory of her brother's death still fresh, keeps her hatred ongoing to the point that when she finds out that her daughter's suitor and his family are Syrians, she is determined to stop the engagement. The film has a message of tolerance and forgiveness explicit in the two families comedic roller coaster ups and downs that eventually unravels the hatred in the end. Although the film targets the Lebanese and the Syrians, its message is applicable to other Arab neighbors and in general too.
Zain Al Rafeea is a Syrian-born Norwegian actor. He is best known for his starring role in the 2018 Lebanese film Capernaum, which won the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
Takreem is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 by Ricardo Karam to honor Arab individuals or organizations that have contributed to the development of their respective communities and to the betterment of the world in the fields culture, education, science, environmental studies, humanitarian services, and socio-economic development.
The Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA), a branch of the Arab League, is a membership organization for Arabic-language, national news agencies, currently of 18 or 19 members and established in 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon.
Hadiqat al-Akhbar was a newspaper which was published in Beirut in the period 1858–1911 with a two-year interruption. Its subtitle was Ṣaḥīfat Sūriyya wa-Lubnān. The paper was the first private daily in Beirut, the first Arabic newspaper which had a regular literary section and the first weekly Arabic newspaper in the region.
Kheirieh Jarkas, known mononymously as Nourhane, was a Syrian singer.
Monika Borgmann-Slim is a German–Lebanese journalist, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and archivist. She is an activist against what she describes as Lebanon's culture of impunity and Vergangenheitsbewältigung, countering official amnesia about the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). She is the widow of the Lebanese filmmaker, archivist and activist Lokman Slim, who was assassinated in 2021.
Arzé is a 2023 Lebanese comedy drama directed by Mira Shaib in her feature directorial debut. The film was selected to premiere in the Official Competition of the 45th Cairo International Film Festival The film stars Diamand Abou Abboud, Betty Taoutel, and Bilal Al Hamwi.