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Zain Al Rafeea
Syrian-born actor (born 2004) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Zain Al Rafeea (Arabic: زين الرافعي, born 10 October 2004)[1] is a Syrian actor living in Norway. He is best known for his starring role in the 2018 Lebanese film Capernaum, which won the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
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Al Rafeea was born in Daraa, Syria in 2004 before his family moved to Lebanon in 2012.[2][3] A Syrian refugee, he grew up in the slums of Beirut with his parents.[4][5] He was 12 and illiterate during the production of Capernaum.[6] He had no acting experience. [7] Al Rafeea's Capernaum character, Zain, is named for him.[8]
In November 2018, director Nadine Labaki reported that Al Rafeea received a Norwegian passport in Norway and had been living there for several months: "He's going to school for the first time in his life. He's learning how to read and write. He's regained his childhood. He's playing in a garden; he's not playing anymore with knives and in garbage."[9] Al Rafeea began attending school in Hammerfest.[10]
For Capernaum, Al Rafeea was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor.[11] He also won Best Actor at the 2018 International Antalya Film Festival.[12] The New York Times called his as performances one of the best of 2018. Wesley Morris wrote, "Every once in a while, you leave a movie having seen a performance that mocks all the other acting that came before it".[7] James Verniere of the Boston Herald described Al Rafeea as "part Oliver Twist, part James Dean".[13]
In 2021, he appeared as a villager in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Eternals.[14]
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