Tara Abboud
Tara Abboud first discovered her passion for performing when she was a four - year-old ballerina at the National Center for Culture and Arts. Back then, Tara got the opportunity to take part in various graduation film projects by emerging directors, who later established prominent names within the industry.
Her first foray into the film industry was through graduation film projects by directors of the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts. These included Motaz Matar's film Min Wara' Albab and Tima Shomali's film Log In. Afterwards, Tara played her first leading role in director Amjad Al-Rasheed's Princess of the Mountains (2009) alongside artist Amer Al-Khuffash.
During high school, Tara played some more leading roles in a number of theater performances directed by her school's Drama Club instructor, Diab Shahin. She then took part in two more filmmaking graduation projects for directors at the SAE Institute in Amman - 12 CM (2014) film by Zaid Khaled and Hayat (2019) by director Leen Awad, both of which won awards.
At the end of 2020, Tara was selected as one of Screen International's Arab Stars of Tomorrow at the Cairo International Film Festival. This came after Tara's memorable performance in the Jordanian TV series Oboor, which was broadcast on Arab satellite channels during Ramadan 2019, prompting star Saba Mubarak to nominate her for the starring role of Amira, which was directed by Egyptian director Mohamed Diab.
In Amira - an Arab-French collaboration - Tara plays the role of a Palestinian girl who was conceived while her father (played by star Ali Suleiman) was detained in prison.
Tara has received largely favorable reviews for her outstanding performance in the film following its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, where it received three awards. The film also premiered in the Arab world at the fifth edition of the El-Gouna Film Festival and was featured at the Festival Cinemed Montpellier.
Tara finished shooting Culprits - Disney+'s upcoming UK original series in London - alongside a star-studded cast, including Gemma Arterton, Niamh Algar, Eddie Izzard, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Kamel El-Basha, Kevin Vidal, and Ned Dennehy. An eight-part dark-comedy series, Culprits is directed by J Blakeson.
Her latest film, REBEL - which world premiered during the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival and was released commercially on October 5th in Belgium and Luxembourg and on October 6th in the Netherlands - held its Arab world premiere during the second edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival, marking Tara's first attendance of the festival.