Clara Khoury

Khoury has worked in a variety of roles on stage including the lead in Antigone by Jean Anouih, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Salome by Oscar Wilde, in Arabic as well as in Hebrew and English. Her television work includes the series Parashat Hashavua, written by Ari Folman, and Arab Labor written by Sayed Kashua. She made her big screen debut in 2002 in Rana's Wedding by Hany Abu-Assad (director of the Oscar-nominated Paradise Now) which premiered in the International Critics' Week section at the 55th Cannes Film Festival representing Palestine. In 2005 she gained international recognition for her role in The Syrian Bride, portraying a young Druze woman who risks losing her family by entering an arranged marriage with a Syrian national. Directed by Eran Riklis (Lemon Tree) the film won the Audience Prize at the Locarno Film Festival. Khoury starred in Lipstikka, a British / Israeli psychological drama by Jonathan Sagall, in competition at the Berlinale 2011. At the Al-Midan Arabic Theater in Haifa she starred in Juliano Mer-Khamis's adaptation of Roman Polanski's 1994 movie Death and The Maiden after the play by Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman. Her film repertoire includes Hiam Abbas’s inheritance movie and Susan Youssef Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf and Amsterdam to Anatolia on Netflix. Khoury starred in the acclaimed mini series Baghdad central for Chanel4 and Hulu and the series Homeland for Showtime.