Oweiss Mkhallalati
Oweiss Mkhallalati actually became a «television actor» only a few months after leaving Damascus and settling in Beirut, where his role in Al Hayba quickly made him one of the prominent names of TV series. However, Oweiss is originally a brilliant stage actor, even if television is taking up most of his time today. During his studies at the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts in Damascus, he appeared in many productions at the National Theatre with artists such as Fayez Kazak and Ayman Zeidan, among others. In Beirut, he was part of two theatre works (Above Zero by Ossama Halal and Tachycardia directed by Jamil Arashid).
Oweiss is no stranger to Beirut, as he had visited it many times in the past, before the war, for tourism or to attend cultural and theater festivals. Today, he is on top of his craft in Beirut. «The love I receive from the Lebanese public gives me the energy and strength to continue, and this is a great responsibility that I should give back to them,» Oweiss told the Peace Building in Lebanon supplement. «I understand the difficulties that Syrian actors face in Lebanon; the country is still going through crises and the civil war has ended only recently and may be back at any moment.»
Oweiss has been part of series such as Al Arrab (The Godfather), Khumasiyat Al Gharam (Love Quintets) by Hatem Ali, and Halawat Rouh by Shawki Al Majiri, and the two films Morine (Toni Farjallah) and The Day I Lost My Shadow (Soudade Kaadan).
Sally Sharaf
Sally was forced to leave her university in Damascus when she was still in her fourth year majoring in architecture. She fled to Lebanon from the security-related turmoil that her family experienced in late 2011. She lived in Zahle, not far from the Syrian refugee camps. There she witnessed the death of many of them from cold and difficult living conditions. This prompted her to start several individual initiatives to help, before joining Molham Volunteering Team, which is active in countries with Syrian refugees. Molham Team later became an internationally recognized organization based in France and Turkey.
Sharaf’s work has varied over the past years, including providing medical guarantees for refugee families, empowering women and widows through education and vocational training, educating refugees, managing and developing an orphanage, and helping children in special situations overcome trauma and psychological crises. Sharaf is also currently the program coordinator at «House of Peace», an organization that works on initiatives to strengthen Lebanese and Syrians relations and to change received ideas they have about one another. She recently completed her studies at AUL in Lebanon, majoring in interior design.
«Before coming to Lebanon, I had everything,» says Sharaf, «I didn’t care about the problems of others or what was happening outside the small circle I was living in in Damascus. When I lost everything, I learned to appreciate things in a new way and I understood that many people didn’t have all the opportunities that were available to me, not even the opportunity to live in dignity.» She adds: «When I saw my countrymen dying daily in front of my eyes in the camps in Beqaa and Beirut, I could not stand it any longer. I realized that any one of us is capable of changing the lives of many people with a simple act and that a large number of people are waiting for a small chance to save themselves.»
Soudade Kaadan
Kaadan has had a close relationship with Lebanon since before the Syrian war. She studied filmmaking at Saint Joseph University (2004-2007) and has worked on art projects with Syrian and Lebanese collaborators for a long time. Her latest film When I Lost My Shadow received several international awards. Kaadan has also directed two documentary films in previous years.
After her definitive move to Beirut in 2012, Kaadan decided to open her own production company, KAF Productions. « I filmed several projects in Lebanon about Syria. I got to know a large number of Lebanese regions that have many things in common with Syria, such as Akkar, Beqaa, Hermel, Tripoli and a number of neighborhoods in Beirut. When my Lebanese friends saw some of my films, I was surprised that they did not know much about the regions where they were filmed, even though they were charming and very beautiful,» says Kaadan, «I realized that they were simply afraid to go there.»
Even though Syrian artists face many problems if they decide to make films in Lebanon on a shoestring budget, in addition to discrimination on the market in general, Kaadan managed to carry out many creative projects that make Lebanon a springboard to becoming an international artist. «The cultural potential and the margin of freedom in Lebanon, which is lacking in other Arab countries, have allowed me to enrich my experience and meet a large number of actors in the cultural and artistic fields who have helped me develop my work and make it more mature,» says Kaadan.
Shady Muqresh
Muqresh has been working in theater since 1996. After graduating from the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts in 2004, Muqresh went on to work in several television series and films. He returned to theater after moving to Lebanon in 2014. To date, he has been involved in more than 35 productions.
Muqresh has used his long stage experience in an interactive drama project entitled My Imagination Is Always Bigger (2018) and aimed to develop the skills of theatre trainers and actors with the aim of helping Lebanese and Syrian children overcome barriers to communication through simple traditional games and folk tales. The project ended with interactive theater performances involving more than 150 children in schools in Beirut and Beqaa. Today, Muqresh seeks to expand the project to include entire families and not just children.
«I am very familiar with the shared residues of memory that the Lebanese carry of the Syrians and the stereotypes and the reciprocal negative ideas between the two peoples,» Muqresh told the Peace Building in Lebanon supplement. «But I try to look objectively at the crisis we experience today, in the hope of lighting a candle in the dark, even if this is done by involving Lebanese and Syrian children in saving a princess from the clench of a dragon.»