More than Succession: Hiam Abbass earns a major world-cinema honour.
The European Film Academy will recognise her career at its January 2027 ceremony in Athens, with an ARTE film presentation also planned.
Hiam Abbass is set to receive the European Film Academy’s European Achievement in World Cinema Award, a career honour that reaches far beyond the television role through which many viewers first encountered her.
The Palestinian actress and director, whose credits include Succession, The Visitor and Blade Runner 2049, will be an honorary guest at the 39th European Film Awards in Athens on January 16, 2027. The academy announced the selection on October 21 in recognition of her body of work and contribution to cinema.
This is an announced honour for an upcoming ceremony, not a report that she has already collected the trophy in Athens. It also recognises a career rather than a single performance competing against a newly revealed shortlist of actresses.
More than one screen identity
Abbass’s filmography crosses Palestinian, Arab, European and international cinema. The academy counts more than 100 films in a career whose first leading role came in Ariane Mnouchkine’s La Nuit Miraculeuse in 1989.
Its announcement highlights titles including Raja Amari’s Satin Rouge, Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, Cherien Dabis’s Amreeka, Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor and Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control. The list also extends to Miral, Blade Runner 2049, Gaza Mon Amour and Palestine 36.
The range is part of the significance of the award. It places films made across different languages, production settings and audiences within the same career story, rather than reducing that story to the most internationally recognisable credit.
Television remains part of that record. Alongside Hulu’s Ramy, Abbass appeared in HBO’s Succession, for which the academy notes a Primetime Emmy nomination in 2023. A nomination is recognition in its own right, but it is not the same as winning that award.
A theatre beginning before an international career
Born in Nazareth, Abbass began acting at the Palestinian National Theatre El-Hakawati in East Jerusalem. According to the academy’s account, she later moved to London during a theatre tour through Europe and has lived in Paris since the late 1980s.
That background gives the phrase “world cinema” a practical meaning in her case. Her career did not begin with a Hollywood franchise or an English-language prestige series; those later international credits sit within a much longer working life across theatre and film.
The academy’s tribute connects that path to her continuing work, not to a retirement announcement. The honour should not be read as evidence that she is leaving acting or directing. No such decision was announced in the materials reviewed.
Earlier recognition—and a distinction this time
Abbass has previously been nominated for European Film Awards for two performances in films directed by Eran Riklis. The Syrian Bride brought a People’s Choice Award nomination in 2005, while Lemon Tree brought a European Actress nomination in 2008.
Her Lemon Tree performance also earned an Asia Pacific Screen Award, according to the academy. Those earlier distinctions concern particular work. The newly announced European Achievement in World Cinema honour takes a broader view of her contribution.
Her daughter Lina Soualem’s documentary Bye Bye Tiberias adds another perspective on that life. The film returns to the family’s home village of Deir Hanna and examines Abbass’s choices and family connections. It was nominated for the European Film Awards in 2024; it is a separate work from the films she has directed herself.
The director behind the actor
Abbass also made Inheritance, which screened at festivals including Venice Days in 2012. Bringing her directing work into the tribute prevents a familiar acting profile from obscuring another part of her practice.
The European Film Academy says its partnership with ARTE will accompany the honour with a presentation of films featuring Abbass. The Syrian Bride is planned for television and arte.tv, while Inheritance and Foreign Body are to be made available online. Viewers should check ARTE’s listings for availability and timing rather than assume every title is already accessible in every country.
The January ceremony is scheduled to stream through the European Film Awards website. Until then, the announcement offers an invitation to look beyond a single famous role: an actress many audiences know from an American series is being recognised for work that has moved across far more screens, borders and decades.
