Simon Abkarian

Simon Abkarian

Birth : 1962-03-05, Gonesse, Val d'Oise, France

History

Simon Abkarian (born 5 March 1962) is a French-Armenian actor. Born in Gonesse, Val d'Oise, of Armenian descent, Abkarian spent his childhood in Lebanon. He moved to Los Angeles, where he joined an Armenian theater company managed by Gerald Papazian. He returned to France in 1985, settling in Paris. He took classes at the Acting International school, then he joined Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil. Abkarian left the Théâtre du Soleil in 1993 and played in 2001 "Beast on the Moon" by Richard Kalinoski, directed by Irina Brook, a play about the life of a survivor of the Genocide of the Armenians, a role which won him critical acclaims and the Molière of the best comedian. His first roles in cinema were proposed by French filmaker Cédric Klapisch, who asked him to play in several of his movies, notably in "Chacun cherche son chat" ("When the Cat is Away" (1996) and in "Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire)" en 2003. He was featured in Sally Potter's Yes (2004), in which he played the lead role. Abkarian then played Mehdi Ben Barka in the thriller "J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka" by Serge Le Péron, about the kidnapping and the murder of the leader of the Moroccan opposition. He then played in "Prendre Femme" by Ronit Elkabetz which won him several interpretation prizes. Playing different roles and in different genres, he was featured in the adventure "Zaïna, cavalière de l'Atlas" by Bourlem Guerdjou, in the comedy "Le Démon de midi" by Marie-Pascale Osterriet. He has also appeared in Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002), he was Albert in Almost Peaceful (2004) by French Director Michel Deville a film about Holocaust survivors, he was featured in "Your Dreams" (2005) by Denis Thybaud. He played the role of villain Alex Dimitrios in the James Bond film, Casino Royale. The character is a Government contractor and arms dealer working against Bond. He was featured as Sahak in the thriller "Les Mauvais Joueurs" ("The Gamblers") (2007) by Frédéric Balekdjian. He has also been the voice of Ebi in the French version of the animated feature "Persepolis". Abkarian played the role of the eminent Armenian poet Missak Manouchianin in "Army of Crime" (2010) by Robert Guédiguian, a French filmaker based in Marseilles, who is also of Armenian parentage. He has also played Dariush Bakhshi, the Iranian Special Consul, in the BBC drama Spooks MI-5. Abkarian is known for his intensity in acting and for his ecclectism in the roles he choses. Description above from the Wikipedia article Simon Abkarian, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .

Profile

Simon Abkarian
Simon Abkarian

Movies

Overdose
Daniel Prat
Captain Sara Bellaiche, from Toulouse Judiciary Police branch, is investigating a go-fast linked to the murder of two teenagers, an investigation led by Richard Cross, from the Paris Criminal Brigade. Forced to collaborate in order to find the murderer and stop the bloody go-fast, Sara and Richard are both thrown in a breathless race against the clock on the roads of Spain and France.
The Way to Happiness
Saül Birnbaum
Saul escaped the coming Shoah as a child by being sent from Vienna to Brussels by a Kindertransport. Now in 1986, he is on the road to resilience and owner of a Delicatessen dedicated to the "Septième Art" - the movies. With Joakin, his protégé, a young Chilean director, they decide to write the story of Saul's childhood and make it into a film. But love comes knocking at his door and confronts him with his past as a hidden child...
Restless
Marelli
After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.
Cop Goes Missing
Tristan
One morning, a worn-out field cop, nicknamed Ping-Pong by everyone, burns his police ID and disappears. During one night and one day, his colleagues look for him, meet him and lose him in Toulouse and its suburbs. But every hour that passes brings Ping-Pong a little bit closer to his own destiny.
Off-Season
Anthony
A seaside resort in the middle of winter, with its abandoned beach bars and rain-battered alleys, can easily flank the drone. Refugees on the top floor of a building in La Grande Motte, Carole and Richard Lazure have zero morale: swindled by their tax advisor and badly defended by an incompetent lawyer, they lost their business, their house and no longer even enough to buy the essentials. The eruption into their life of a childhood friend of Richard, a talkative talker with questionable dating, could be a game-changer - or make their situation worse.
Permis de construire
Müller
When his father passes away, a dentist in Paris inherits a plot and the will to build a house on it. The situation becomes tricky when he learns the plot is located in Corsica.
Black Notebooks
With this two-part feature documentary, Shlomi Elkabetz shares a poignant love letter to his sister, the late actress and director Ronit Elkabetz, and delivers a rare cinematic experience.
Les Damnés de la Commune
Narrateur (voice)
Le dernier jour du jeûne
Le dernier jour du jeûne
Writer
The Audition
Philippe
Anna teaches violin at a music school, her husband is an instrument-maker. They have a 10-year-old son, Jonas. At school, Anna champions young Alexander, in whom she alone sees great talent. She devotes much energy and attention preparing him for the next stage exam to prove she was right. Soon Anna devotes more time to him than to Jonas, bringing the two boys into rivalry. At the same time her marriage is collapsing, she withdraws increasingly from her own family and starts an affair with her colleague Christian, who is encouraging her to join a quartet. When she fails during their joint concert, the pressure mounts. With Alexander now her vehicle, she drives him ever onwards and upwards. Come the day of the exam, events take a tragic turn...
Someone, Somewhere
Mansour
Rémy and Mélanie live next door to each other in Paris but have never met. The two thirty-year-old Parisians search for connections online, but never have much success. Falling deeper into loneliness and depression, both decide to start attending regular therapy. With the help of their therapists, they uncover the real roots of their issues, and find that the connection they were both searching for is much closer than they thought.
The Swallows of Kabul
Atiq (voice)
Summer 1998—Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn.
Ce soir-là et les jours d'après
Karan
Rebels
Simon Bénéké, Sandra's father
Sandra, a young woman forced to leave the south of France to flee a violent husband. Without attachment, she returned to Boulogne-sur-Mer, the city of her childhood which she left almost 15 years ago. She finds her mother there and a world she left behind. Without money, she is hired in a fish cannery where she befriends two workers. But one day, one of her colleagues tackles her insistently, she defends herself and kills him accidentally.
The Sonata
Charles Vernais
After a gifted musician inherits a mansion after her long lost father dies under mysterious circumstances, she discovers his last musical masterpiece riddled with cryptic symbols that unravels an evil secret, triggering dark forces that reach beyond her imagination.
Cyrano, My Love
Ange Fleury
Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.
Journey from Greece
Kakourgos
Djam, a young Greek woman, is sent to Istanbul by her uncle Kakourgos, a former sailor with a passion for Rebetiko, to find a rare part that will repair their boat. In Istanbul, she encounters Avril, a nineteen-year-old French girl, alone and without any money, who came to Turkey as a voluntary worker with refugees. Djam, generous, cheeky, unpredictable, and free-spirited, takes Avril under her wing on the way to Mytilene. A journey filled with encounters, music, sharing, and hope.
Overdrive
Jacomo Morier
Master car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line.
J'ai tué ma femme
Le patron du café
Max and Minou are having a relationship crisis: she's crying, he's getting annoyed. Their car has been vandalised but this is not why she's crying. While looking for a car repairer on a small industrial estate, they come across some people who are even more troubled than they are. The world seems about to erupt.
Scribe
Gerfaut
Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.
Chouf
Le libanais
Chouf: It means “look” in Arabic, but it is also the name of the watchmen in the drug cartels of Marseille. Sofiane is 20. A brilliant student, he comes back to spend his holiday in the Marseille ghetto where he was born. His brother, a dealer, gets shot before his eyes. Sofiane gives up on his studies and gets involved in the drug network, ready to avenge him. He quickly rises to the top and becomes the boss’s right hand. Trapped by the system, Sofiane is dragged into a spiral of violence…
Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Mad
Hovannès Alexandrian
Aram, a young man from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's car in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that precise moment, is seriously injured. Aram's mother feels guilty and feels the need to visit Gilles at the hospital and beg for his forgiveness, something that Gilles does not understand. Against the advice of his comrades in Beirut, Aram decides to go meet his victim.
Tehlirian on Trial: Armenia's Avenger
Narrator
On 15 March 1921, Talat Pasha, a high-ranking Turkish dignitary, was shot dead in a Berlin street by a young Armenian. A few months later, Soghomon Tehlirian, his assassin, appeared before a German court. He faced the death penalty. Yet, during the trial, the victim gradually changed into the guilty party, and the accused was finally acquitted.
1915
Simon
Exactly 100 years after the Armenian Genocide, a theatre director stages a play to bring the ghosts of the past back to life.
The Cut
Krikor
In 1915 a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night he learns that his twin daughters may be alive, and goes on a quest to find them.
Colt 45
Commander Luc Denard
Vincent Miles, a gunsmith and shooting instructor at the National Police, is an expert in combat shooting who stubbornly refuses to join a field brigade, a choice which their colleagues do not understand. When he meets Milo Cardena, a mysterious and skilled cop, his life changes in such way that he cannot ignore his true nature anymore.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Elisha
The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
Angelique
L'avocat François Desgrez
The incredible destiny of Angélique: a beautiful girl who found in her love for Joffrey Peyrac the strength to fight injustice and submission in a century plagued by power struggles, inequality and the oppression.
The Marchers
Le père de Farid
In 1983, in France experiencing intolerance and racial violence , three young teens and the priest Minguettes launching a largely peaceful march for equality and against racism, over 1,000 km between Marseille and Paris . Despite the difficulties and resistance encountered, their movement will bring about a real boost of hope in the way of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They unite with their arrival more than 100 000 people from all walks of life and give France its new face.
Qu'est-ce qu'on va faire de toi?
Abraham Drucker
Zarafa
Hassan (voice)
Inspired by the true story of the first giraffe to visit France, Zarafa is a sumptuously animated and stirring adventure, and a throwback to a bygone era of hand-drawn animation and epic storytelling set among sweeping CinemaScope vistas of parched desert, wind-swept mountains and open skies. Under the cover of darkness a small boy, Maki, loosens the shackles that bind him and escapes into the desert night. Pursued by slavers across the moon-lit savannah, Maki meets Zarafa, a baby giraffe – and an orphan, just like him – as well as the nomad Hassan, Prince of the Desert. Hassan takes them to Alexandria for an audience with the Pasha of Egypt, who orders him to deliver the exotic animal as a gift to King Charles of France.
Force
Jimi Weiss
Following a series of unsolved robberies, the authorities decide to give carte blanche to commander Clara Damico to neutralize a particularly organized gang. Manual Makarov, a well-known figure in organized crime, is currently serving a sentence of twelve years in prison. Commander Damico promises him freedom in exchange for his cooperation. He refuses. There is no other solution, she is obliged to compel him by force.
Les Amants naufragés
Milo Garavan
Stan Mirkine would have everything to be happy. Now, he is sure of it: his wife is cheating on him. Too much in love, possessive to the extreme, he is haunted every day by the only fear of discovering that Mathilde is unfaithful. Day after day, week after week, suspicions precipitate Stan in an infernal spiral driven by jealousy. The existence of Mathilde and Stan rocking after an irreparable act: Stan kills the one he thinks is his rival. Soon, doubt settles, jealousy resurfaced. What if Stan was abused by his paranoia? Could it be that his jealousy is only the result of a mad scheme? Who would then draw the strings? ...
Turk's Head
Le veuf
A 14 year old boy, an ER doctor, a cop looking for revenge, a mother fighting for her children and a man distraught by the death of his wife see their destinies come together. As the doctor spends several days in a coma, events keep on happening and all will be swept by the shock wave.
Rage
Merlin
A schoolboy uses his cellphone camera to shoot intimate interviews with people working at a New York fashion house and secretly posts them on the internet. Result: a bitterly funny expose of an industry in crisis, during a week in which an accident on the runway becomes a murder investigation, and denial leads to devastation.
Army of Crime
Missak Manouchian
This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on 30 operations against the Nazis in 1943. The Nazis branded the group an Army of Crime, an anti-immigrant propaganda stunt that backfired as the team's members became martyrs for the Resistance.
Secrets of State
Al Barad
In France, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies battle in a merciless war everyday, in the name of radically opposed ideologies. Yet, terrorist and secret agents lead almost the same lives. Condemned to secrecy, these masters of manipulation follow the same methods. Alex and Al Barad are two of them. The former is the head of the D.G.S.E.'s (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French equivalent of the CIA or the MI6) counter-terrorism unit while the latter reigns over a terrorist network, and both fight using the most ruthless of weapons: human beings.
The Wedding Song
Raoul
The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewess who are both preparing for their marriages.
Le Menteur : La Pièce !
Lelio
Musée haut, musée bas
Gilles Paulin
Un conservateur terrorisé par les plantes vertes, une mère plastifiée pour être exposée, un ballet de Saintes Vierges, des gardiens épuisés par Rodin, un ministre perdu dans une exposition de sexes, une voiture disparue au parking Rembrandt, des provinciaux amoureux des Impressionnistes, touristes galopins galopant d'une salle à l'autre, passager clandestin dans l'art premier, Picasso, Gauguin, Warhol, ils sont tous là dans ce petit monde qui ressemble au grand, dans ce musée pas si imaginaire que ça, valsant la comédie humaine jusqu'au burlesque.
Khamsa
Père
A 13 year old Gypsy boy escapes from foster home to continue a life of mischief and delinquency during a French summer.
Shiva
Eliyau
When one of the brothers (Ohayn) dies, all the whole family comes for Shiva (Jewish tradition,when the family sits seven days at the home after the death one of their family). A large family with a lot of problems and conflicts between them.
Minor Revelations
"The choice of each period is intimate, as each period awakens a particular emotion in me. This emotion reflects what is around me, not everyone is able to recognise it -- that is the risk I take. I think that this is good enough reason to make a film that will make visible small yet revealing things in differeent ways. I believe in tropisms and that is what interests me in this film." -- Marie Vermillard [taken from London Film Festival 2006 catalogue]
L'Affaire Ben Barka
le général Oufkir, ministre marocain de l'intérieur
Rendition
Said Abdel Aziz
When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.
Persepolis
Marjane's Father (voice)
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
Trivial
Pierre
An inspector who just suffered a family tragedy is looking for a missing older man. Man's family is of no help, or are they hiding something? He is helped by a ghost of an actress who died 30 years ago, or is he slowly going insane?
New Délire
Gunter (voice)
Take a Bollywood film--a good Bolllywood film--with action, emotion, suspense, and laughter. With Indian actors who act, dance, sing and smother themselves with tomato sauce when feigning a bloody head wound. Now, watch the image with the sound turned down! And let Pascal Legitimus and Eric Le Roch re-invent a story, recreate the sounds and the atmosphere, rewrite the lyrics to the songs. They'll give a new meaning to the film, helped in doing so by many well-known actors, who'll lend their voices to the Indian actors on screen. This diversion isn't a danger to your health. You simply risk killing yourself laughing!
The Snake
Sam
A ruthless gang led by private detective Joseph Plender is extorting rich people and famous fashion photographer Vincent Mandel seems the next victim. He is married to Hélène, daughter of one of the richest people in Europe, but not quite happily. In fact the marriage is on the brink of a divorce and a judge is deciding who will take the two children. Can Hélène take them to Germany or will they stay with Vincent? Vincent has a lot on his mind and he improvises when model Sofia Kippiani comes to his studio, but his makeup crew doesn't show up. Before he knows it, he is accused of a rape. Things go worse and worse for Vincent, he sees his entire life slipping away and, most importantly, he might lose his children. But why does his former schoolmate Joseph Plender seek contact with Vincent and even solve a nasty problem for him? Does Plender want something more than money?
Casino Royale
Alex Dimitrios
Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career.
Armenia
Sarkis Arabian
This is a story about returning to ones ancestral homeland. Anna is a cardiologist who discovers her father has fled to his native Armenia after being diagnosed with a heart problem. Despite their contentious relationship, she sets out to bring her father back for this operation. Anna is a tough-minded, headstrong woman with little feeling for her fathers homeland or patience with its politics and socially intrusive culture, yet she finds this journey not only a reunion of sorts, but one of reconciliation as well.
S.A.C. : Des hommes dans l'ombre
Cesari
I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed
Mehdi Ben Barka
January 1966. In a Paris apartment, police discovered the corpse of Georges Figon, the man who broke the scandal of the Ben Barka affair and undermined Gaullist power. A year earlier, Figon, tired of dubious deals and petty scams, is looking for a juicy blow. Close to the "middle" since his years in prison, he was given a large mission: to produce a documentary about decolonization, written by Marguerite Duras and directed by Georges Franju, with the help of the famous Moroccan opponent Mehdi Ben Barka, hired as a historical consultant. This film project is a trap ...
Zaina: Rider of the Atlas
Omar
Young Zaina, must lead a caravan of precious thoroughbreds to Marrakech to take part of the most prestigious of all races : the Agdal. Along she'll have to face powerful OMAR and learn to trust her newly discovered father Mustapha.
Yes
He
She is a scientist. He is a Lebanese doctor. They meet at a banquet and fall into a carefree, passionate relationship. But difficulties abound because of his heritage and her loveless marriage. She flies to Havana to sort things out on the beach and in the cabarets. She sends him a ticket, but harbors no illusions that He will join her in this Caribbean melting pot.
The Demon Stirs
Julien Cestac
Anne Cestac accepts the obvious: her husband Julien, in his forties, has fallen madly in love with another woman. Annoyed, Anne sets out to find potential lovers.
Les mauvais joueurs
Sahak
Paris, le quartier du Sentier. Noël approche et la vie de Vahé Krikorian part à vau-l'eau. La boutique de son père, avec qui il travaille, va bientôt fermer. Trop de dettes et d'impayés. Lu Ann, la femme qu'il aime, le quitte et il sent bien que les arnaques au bonneteau qu'il pratique avec Sahak et son frère Toros ne vont pas le mener loin.
In Your Dreams
Wilson
Ninth is a promising young rapper whose reputation does not exceed even the few streets of his neighborhood. With his band and supported by Keuj, hairdresser apprentice producer, he tries to attend concerts and trying to break into the music, to the chagrin of his mother, who would see him in a more conventional career at the post office...
To Take A Wife
Eliyahoo
The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.
Not For, or Against (Quite the Contrary)
Freddy
"Ni Pour, Ni Contre" tracks the fall of a young TV camerawoman, Caty, after she becomes involved with a group of petty criminals and their enigmatic leader, Jean. The gang lives hand-to-mouth until the day Jean plans a daring bank robbery. Although other gang members feel out of their league, Jean persuades them to take part and Caty finds herself in a hellish world of betrayal, violence and murder.
The Legend of Princess Parva
Swami (voice)
The island of Kiam was once a paradise place with a kind Maharaja as a ruler. But one day the villainous Malaw killed the island’s ruler and deprived the Crown Prince Shiva of the throne. The insidious Malaw had the prince locked up in a dungeon in the palace’s underground labyrinth, and he announced to the Kiam residents that he would kill Shiva if they only tried to rebel. Then the Old Sage Swami, aided by programmer Agni, came into contact with the Light of Crystal. That’s what he called a girl named Parva, who embodied radiant innocence and was born of the same astral combination as Prince Shiva. Only she and her love could save the prince and bring peace back to the island of Kiam.
Almost Peaceful
Albert
Set during the largely unexplored period immediately following World War II, the film follows a group of mostly Jewish Parisians who attempt to restart their lives and rekindle their capacity for happiness in the shadow of unspeakable horrors. Variety called it "thoroughly charming. Sad, gentle, and funny in the best French tradition of high quality cinema." A film by Marcelo Gomes
Aram
Aram
Aram, an ex-soldier from the Armenian cause, has come to France to close an arms deal under secret service surveillance. Held responsible and banished by his faher for his brother's injuries in a terrorist ttack, he's also come to seek revenge for the drama that has marked his family and his life.
The Truth About Charlie
Lieutenant Dessalines
Regina meets charming Joshua while vacationing in Martinique, as she contemplates ending her whirlwind marriage to enigmatic Charlie. Upon her return to Paris, she finds that both her apartment and her bank account have been emptied, and her husband has been murdered. The more Reggie learns, the more she realizes the scope of the puzzle which she must solve to protect herself from ever-increasing danger.
Ararat
Arshile Gorky
Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.
Lila Lili
Simon
Micheline, who is pregnant, lives in a home for women from which she tries to observe the world with calm and serenity. Among other women of the home who are also pregnant the frequently asked question is whether they will keep their baby or not.
Tempest in a Teapot
American actor-director Arnold Barkus made this low-budget French film, a comedy set in New York, with scenes taking place in Chinatown, in a Franco-Greek cabaret, and on the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn-born Max suspects his girlfriend Sophia has been cheating on him. His French pal Jean and a young woman, Vita, step in with a scheme to get back at Sophia, a character who is never seen during the entire film. Included is a parody of the Russian roulette scene from The Deer Hunter (1978).
When the Cat's Away
Carlos
When Chloe, a young Parisian, decides to take a long-overdue vacation, she has to find someone to look after Gris-Gris, her beloved cat. Everyone, including her gay male roommate, refuses to help her, but she finally makes an arrangement with the elderly Madame Renée, who often watches over other peoples' cats and dogs. However, when Chloe comes back, Madame Renée tells her that unfortunately the cat has been lost, and the unlucky owner goes on a search for her dear animal friend. While looking for the cat, she meets many colorful characters who populate the neighborhood.
Dead Man Walking
Thanks
A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple.
Ana El Awan
Camille is a composer going back to his homeland Lebanon to write a song about his country. Raya is looking for her lost son. They meet, fall in love, and discover the despair of the people of war-torn Lebanon.
Le Poisson rouge
Customer
Dieu reconnaîtra les siens
Le Quatrième mur
Marwan