Rising Egyptian Star Yasmina El-Abd on Gen Z Female Empowerment in the Arab World and Reprising Her Role as Zeina in Netflix’s ‘Finding Ola’
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rising Egyptian star Yasmina El-Abd, whose acting career has been on a roll since she was 12, stands as testimony to the fact that female empowerment is becoming a major theme in the Arab world’s film and TV output.
Born in Switzerland to an Egyptian family, El-Abd took acting classes in London and landed her first acting job in the well-received short “The Shadow of Cairo” playing a 12-year-old named Maya who seeks vengeance for her mothers’ death by becoming a superhero of sorts who chases down sexual harassers in Cairo.
A slew of roles have followed, including in powerful Arab patriarchy drama “Daughters of Abdul-Rahman”; as well as in HBO Max kids series “Theodosia,” where El-Abd is the only Egyptian cast member and plays one of the leads, Princess Safiya; the groundbreaking Arabic-language musical feature ”Sukkar,” and, of course hit Netflix series “Finding Ola” – the second season of which just dropped – in which she plays Zeina, a surrogate daughter of the show’s happily divorced protagonist.
Yasmina El-Abd – who recently turned 18 and acts and sings in English, French and Arabic – spoke to Variety about her career progression and why, besides being an actor and singer, she’s now ready to take some further steps. When did you start realising how important female empowerment is in the stories you play on screen? Pretty soon.
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