For Palestinian actor Adam Bakri , Eid in March was difficult. It was his first Eid without his father, legendary actor Mohammad Bakri , who sadly passed away in December 2025 at the age of 72.
His passing came while Adam, his brother , actor Saleh Bakri , and their late father were meant to be on the publicity trail for their latest film, All That's Left of You (Watermelon Pictures). The film saw Mohammad and his two sons working together, telling the story of three generations of a Palestinian family.
In the multi-generational drama , which was released in select cinemas in February, Adam was cast as the orange grove owner and poet Sharif, while his late father, Mohammad, played Sharif as an older man.
The story spans 75 years of Palestinian history, from the Nakba in 1948 until the early 2020s.
Co-star Cherien Dabis , from Netflix comedy Mo , is the film's director, writer and producer, alongside Hollywood actors and executive producers Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem. Filming of the movie was scheduled to start in the West Bank in October 2023, but when Israel's genocide began after 7 October , the entire crew had to quickly relocate to Cyprus.
Sets had to be rebuilt, and the movie was ultimately shot in Cyprus, Greece, and Jordan.
Filming locations included a Palestinian refugee camp in North Jordan and a former concentration camp in Cyprus, where Cypriot resistors to the British were imprisoned in the 1950s and where Jewish immigrants bound for Palestine were held in the 1940s .
Adam tells The New Arab that the film is the first of its kind to portray the 1948 Nakba on such a grand scale, making it the most important work he has ever done.
In the film, the young Sharif is ousted from his home and orange groves during the Nakba and spends a year in a prison camp.
"Working alongside my father in this was the most precious aspect of the film for me," Adam tells The New Arab. "We had wanted to work together for the longest time. Going back to tell the story of the Nakba was the most important thing for me, because we haven't made many period films in Palestinian cinema or Arab cinema in general. The story of our Nakba has not been told enough," he adds. "Going back in time to tell it and playing the role of my father as a young man was very emotional for me. It does feel like we've done something important for Palestinian history. Hopefully, this is the beginning of more films telling Palestinian stories from their beginnings." Art, activism, and home Adam has always been selective when it comes to roles. After his breakout role as a Palestinian resistance fighter in Omar (2013) , he starred in the 2016 film adaptation of Kurban Said's 1937 novel Ali and Nino , in which he plays a Muslim Azerbaijani man who falls in love with a Christian Georgian woman.
As Yasar Gun, he is Kiera Knightley's tender and thoughtful Kurdish husband in the 2019 drama Official Secrets . He has succeeded in portraying the loving, romantic and affectionate Middle Eastern man that is seldom depicted in cinema.
"I became conscious of the question of roles early on, and I chose not to play the game," he shares with The New Arab. "I think there should be more tender, loving, good-looking, romantic leads from the Arab world."
Artist, actor, poet, and self-confessed romantic, Adam says that while Palestine has become the focus of much of his creative work, it was not always this way.
He shares that in his youth, he had wanted to run away from the heavy responsibility of representing Palestine, moving to New York to study acting, where he has lived for the last two decades.
But Israel's genocide in Gaza has changed his perspective on everything. Home, he says, is where his family is, but he will always be deeply connected to Palestine.
"Growing up in my family, making conscious decisions as a human being and as an artist, and what it means to be Palestinian was a question that was always brought to the table," he says.
"For the longest time, I wanted to live a normal life. But with time, I understood that I can't really live a normal life until Palestine is free."
He adds, "Home is where my wife is, where my family is, but I'm deeply connected to Palestine as a place, geographically, physically and emotionally. I adore it. I love its nature. I love the air I breathe there. It's different. Home is Palestine in so many different ways.
"The genocide made things clearer to me. The lines are clearer now. The priorities are clearer. I'm interested in the stories I tell, and what I say as a Palestinian artist is very important." Genocide, grief, and the power of storytelling Shortly after the release of All That's Left Of You , Adam began shooting Ashab Al-Ard ( Owners of the Land) , the 15-part Egyptian drama about the genocide in Gaza, which unsurprisingly drew criticism from Israel for its raw depiction of the massive scale of destruction and suffering.
The drama, which aired on several Egyptian TV channels during Ramadan, starred Egyptian actress Menna Shalaby as a doctor volunteering at Gaza's largest hospital and Jordanian actor Eyad Nassar as a Palestinian man trying to save his nephew.
In it, Adam played Nassar's brother, photojournalist Majd. Three weeks into filming, Adam's father passed away.
"It was very difficult for me," Adam shares.
"It's impossible to portray a genocide. It's impossible to understand fully what a human being can go through in a situation like that. We tried, and I was miserable shooting this show because I wanted to ensure I paid it what it deserves. I was so conscious of the fact that I'm doing a show about the genocide," he continues. "The emotional aspect of what we were doing was intense," he continues. "The chaos, the heaviness I was feeling and the grief of my dad's passing, I channelled it all into my acting. The reaction from people in Gaza was actually overwhelmingly positive. The most repeated comment we got was that the show allowed them to feel what they didn't allow themselves to feel when the genocide was happening. I am really proud of the show."
Beyond acting, Adam is also an avid artist.
Initially, painting was a hobby, but he says he is taking it much more seriously now.
He recently showcased his painting Gaza at Majarrah in Cairo, his first time participating in an official exhibition.
"I was trying to portray what it means to survive a genocide," he explains.
"What is left of innocence in childhood? What is left of the human spirit? I was asking myself all of these questions, and I wanted to channel some meaning through this half-scarred doll's face. "I got the biggest canvas I could find, because I felt like the size is also an important part of the painting, and I painted it from a low angle to give it more power. The doll represents stolen innocence and childhood. There are small details like a bullet in the mouth, and in its eyes, you can see destruction and smoke."
Anyone who has lost a parent or loved one knows that grief is not linear, and as All That's Left Of You makes its way onto streaming platforms in the United States, Adam has been reflecting on his father's legacy, the memory of which he hopes will live on through him and his siblings.
"It already started before he passed away, and he knows; we shared that with him," Adam tells The New Arab. "The artistic integrity that he had and the integrity he had in general as a human being towards his cause is deeply inspiring. I hope to live up to that," he adds. "InshAllah, we will continue his legacy and always remain rooted to who we are and who he and our mother taught us to be. We were raised to think of others as being part of our life and not separate from it, other Palestinians specifically. I'm blessed for that, Alhamdulillah." Yousra Samir Imran is a British-Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press Follow her on Instagram: @ writereadeatrepeat