Faten Shahin
Acting
Biography
Syrian actress who joined the Actors Syndicate in 1974. Her early roles include the series The Whales (1995), after which she appeared in several roles in TV, theater, and radio. Her TV credits include Omar (2012), Four Seasons S1 (1999), Crime in Memory (1992), and Big Dreams (2004).
Known For

A historical saga about the second caliph and Commander of the Faithful Omar Bin Al-Khattab and his pivotal role in the Islamic State.
Omar

Rijal Al-Izz — Men of Honor — is a 2011 Syrian Damascene period drama set in the Saroujeh neighborhood of Damascus during the French occupation of the 1930s. The series follows Abd Al-Rahman Al-Shami, a wrongfully accused man who escapes a death sentence and transforms into a resistance fighter, striking fear into the French occupiers while navigating betrayal and injustice within his own community. Starring Rashid Assaf and Qusai Khouli.
Rijal Al-Izz

Matar disappears under mysterious circumstances for 20 years, during which everyone has believed he had died a martyr. However, he returns in a new form and builds a financial empire amidst the mystery surrounding the source of his wealth. Using the spider's method, he tightens his grip on everyone and exploits them to achieve his goals of doubling his wealth and taking revenge on his past friends.
Memories of the Next Era

A Syrian social drama series that sheds light on a neighborhood in one of the slums in the vicinity of Damascus, around a poor family consisting of a mother and her four children, who strive to meet their needs and achieve their ambitions with the tools available to them, while focusing on solving future problems at the time, leaving them to chance, luck, mischief, whim, or influence.
Ayamana Alhulwa

Men Under the Fez is a Syrian ensemble drama that explores the quiet gap between public virtue and private behaviour. Set in a society where educated, “progressive” men speak fluently about equality and modern values, the series gradually reveals the contradictions in their personal lives — and the emotional cost carried by the women closest to them. Through intersecting stories of marriages, desire, hypocrisy and self-deception, it offers a sharp, often uncomfortable portrait of everyday patriarchy. Directed by Hisham Sharbatji, starring Khaled Taja and Karess Bashar.
Men Underneath the Fez

The Halaby family works in trade. When the father decides to write all his property over to one of his sons, the two brothers clash, until the eldest brother falls ill, and his younger son is forced to give up his ambition to take care of their business.
Big Dreams

A group of students navigate the final years of secondary school — first loves, family pressures, friendship rivalries and the weight of uncertain futures. A second season follows them into adulthood ten years later, showing who they became and what life did to their dreams. A warm, relatable Syrian youth drama spanning 3 seasons from 2011 to 2020, featuring Yamen Hajali and Moatasem Al-Nahar in early roles.
Ayam el Derasa

A love story between Azza and Amjad, whose hopes and efforts are united to make a happy family. But their love faces unexpected obstacles which turns into an inescapable parting story.
Forgiveness

Nader is lost between his parents, who are experiencing a struggle between love and hate, Lulia, who is persecuted by her stepmother, Dalal, whose hatred for her stepdaughter reaches the point of attempting murder. Dalal considers Lulia the reason for her unhappiness, but when Lulia leaves her life, she discovers her mistake. Tahseen her husband can only run away from problems and cannot solve any of them.
On the Edge of the Abyss
No description available.
My Heart Is With You

Jalal is imprisoned on trumped-up political charges. As he breaks out of prison and crosses the Lebanese borders, he meets his Palestinian friend, Qassem, who is a member of the resistance against the Israelis. Jalal's wife gets the court to grant her divorce in absentia to marry Colonel Nazem.
Messages of Love and War

Having spent most of her 20s taking care of her sick mother and her family's household, a sexually repressed woman elopes and has to face the hypocrisies of middle eastern society.
The Age of Shame

In 1918 Damascus, after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and before the French colonization of the country, six Damascene neighborhoods decide to choose one head to rule over them, only for clashes over the throne to crystalize and extend.
The Leader

At a Damascus girls' high school, the school counsellor Hanan is the quiet centre of everyone's storms — helping teenagers navigate family pressure, social expectations and the bruising complexities of adolescence, while quietly managing the unravelling of her own marriage. Each student carries a different wound; each episode peels back another layer. A warm, perceptive Syrian drama about the hidden costs of growing up female in Arab society. Directed by Rasha Sharbatji, starring Salma Al-Masri and Qusay Khouli.
Soft Thorns

The series revolves around a conflict among numerous princes, where each prince believes he is the rightful ruler to unify the kingdom and end the fragmentation plaguing the land.
Castles

Life returns to a building abandoned after the Lebanese Civil War when it becomes a temporary haven for Syrian refugees, as war ravages their homeland.
We'll Meet Tomorrow

The series monitors the social, political and cultural life in Syria from the period 1932 to 1936, where the events take place in two neighboring areas: the city of Aleppo, and a supposed rural area called Kom alHajar.
كوم الحجر

In one of the slums, a group of intertwined stories revolve around residents whose movement may extend outside this neighborhood due to work or study, and their fates intersect with the paths of some characters from other neighborhoods of the city.
The Slums
The show tells the story of a playwright, Jalal, who holds secular views, and his close friendship with Michel, his childhood friend. Michel initially worked as a lawyer but later transitioned to journalism, founding his own magazine in which he boldly addresses societal issues, drawing significant criticism. Additionally, the narrative explores themes of separating religion from civil and political life through a love story between a man and a woman from different faiths: Jalal (a Muslim) and Hanan (a Christian). Their relationship culminates in a secret marriage, which lasts until Jalal’s sudden passing. Throughout the story, the work focuses on two major issues related to secularism: the demand for a civil personal status law that permits civil marriage, and the call for a secular education system that allows students the freedom to seek their own truths instead of being indoctrinated with a predetermined "absolute truth." It also tackles issues of political and social corruption.
ليس سراباً

An Arabic-language series based on Agatha Christie's novel The Sleeping Murder, about a murder that occurred and went undiscovered until 20 years later.