Sabry’s breakthrough in the film industry was in 1994 at the age of 14 in her first acting role in The Silences of the Palace (Samt El Qosour), the debut feature of Moufida Tlatli. The Tunisian film won numerous awards including the Cannes Film Festival’s Camera d’Or and earned Sabry the Best Actress award at the Carthage Film Festival that year. The film is considered a classic in Arab Cinema and in 2021 was ranked 1st on the list of the 100 Best Women's Films in the history of Arab Cinema [3] and 5th in the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF)'s publication Cinema of Passion: Dubai's list of the 100 Most Important Arab Films.[4]
After The Silences of the Palace, Sabry took a break from acting to continue her studies. She returned to the big screen in Tlatli’s second feature, The Season of Men (2000) a feminist critique of the traditional code of behavior that many Tunisian women are subjected to. It premiered at Cannes' Un Certain Regard.
In 2001 Sabry received her law degree from Tunis University and went on to appear in her first Egyptian film, Diary Of A Teenager (Mothakerat Morahkah) helmed by Inas El-Degheidy, a director whose films often center around female characters and with frank depictions of sexuality.[5] The story of a teenage girl (Sabry) who embarks on a sexual relationship proved to be controversial in Egypt for breaking taboos around pre-marital sex. Sabry was surprised by the reaction: “I came from a [Tunisian] cinema that was much more progressive and visually much more daring as well as in the storytelling. I was very ignorant about Egyptian cinema because I was Francophone, Francophile and more into Western movies so I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.” [6] Despite the controversy, the film was a commercial success and her breakthrough film in Egypt.[7]
In the early 2000s, Sabry was traveling back and forth between Egypt and Tunisia juggling both studies and acting. While having put aside her plans of joining the Tunisian Foreign Service to instead pursue acting full-time, she recognized the importance of intellectual property (IP) to a career in the film industry, and received a master’s degree in intellectual property and copyright law in 2004.[8][9]
In 2002 Sabry starred in Daoud Abdel Sayed’s Egyptian comedy drama A Citizen, A Detective And A Thief (Mowaten we Mokhber we Haramy) alongside the popular musician-actor Shaaban Abdel Rehim. This film too, proved controversial around its depiction of sex, as well as of censorship and police ineptitude. It was nonetheless a box office hit in Egypt and the region.[10] Sabry’s first blockbuster came in 2006 with The Yacoubian Building (Oumaret Yacoubian), Marwan Hamad’s international breakthrough feature adapted from Alaa Al Aswany’s eponymous 2007 social satire set against the backdrop of an apartment building in downtown Cairo. It was Egypt’s most expensive film to date and went on to set a record for the biggest debut ever for an Egyptian theatrical release.[11] It was also the first of a series of collaborations between Sabry and Hamad.
A lover of the short film format,[6] that same year, she appeared in an indie short, Rise and Shine (2006) by Egyptian director Sherif Elbendary, which won numerous awards locally and internationally including at the Tribeca Film Festival.
In 2009 Sabry appeared in Marwan Hamad’s second feature, Ibrahim Labyad (2009) an Egyptian drama co-starring Ahmed El-Sakka one of Egypt’s biggest stars.
The 2010s
In keeping with her stated preference for taking on socially relevant roles,[9] Sabry increasingly appeared in films and series with a perceived social impact. The 2010 comedy series I Want to Get Married (Ayiza Atgawez) would prove seminal to Sabry’s career. Adapted from Ghada Abdel Aal‘s popular autobiographical blog-turned-book, the series pokes fun at, while criticizing, the societal pressures Egyptian women face to get married young. The series was a huge success in the MENA region turning Sabry, who plays a pharmacist desperate to get married before she turns 30, into a regional star. A Netflixreboot of the series twelve years later would be another important marker in her career.
In 2011 Sabry appeared in Asmaa, director and writer Amr Salama's second feature.[8] Inspired by real events of an Egyptian woman who died from a burst gallbladder because doctors refused to operate when learning she had HIV, Salama sought to raise awareness and change misconceptions about AIDS in Egypt. Critically acclaimed and popular on the international festival circuit, the film garnered a number of awards including the 2012 Murex d'Or Award for Best Arabian Actress for Sabry.[12]
In 2013, Arabian Business listed her among the "100 most powerful Arab Women".[13] In 2014 she became a partner of Tayarah, one of Egypt's biggest platforms for video and digital content production.[14][9] In 2015 she established her Cairo-based Salam Production company.[15]
The Tunisian drama The Flower Of Aleppo (2016) was the first film produced under the banner of Salam Production. Sabry played the lead role of a mother who disguises herself as a Jihadi woman to rescue her teenage son who had joined ISIS in Aleppo, Syria.[15] That same year she appeared in the drama series Life is Beautiful, (Halawat Al Dounia) about a woman who is diagnosed with leukemia right before getting married, and starring opposite fellow Tunisian Dhafer L’Abidine. In December, the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) bestowed her with the Faten Hamama Award for Excellence at the 2017 edition.[16]
In 2019, Sabry appeared in two notable, though vastly different films. InThe Blue Elephant 2, an Egyptian horror film by Marwan Hamad, she starred alongside a cast of Egyptian stars that included Karim Abdel Aziz, Nelly Karim, and Tara Emad. A sequel to Hamad's The Blue Elephant (2014), it became the highest-earning film in Egyptian history.[17] In Noura's Dream a small Tunisian independent film, she plays a working-class mother of three in the wake of the Arab Spring whose abusive husband is being released from prison early. The film won the Golden Tanit award and the Best Actress Award for Sabry at the Carthage Film Festival. About working in Tunisia, Sabry said: “I try to work there every three to four years because I don’t want to stay away longer. It’s always a pleasure because it’s a small industry. Not even an industry, it’s a craftsmanship; small films with very low budgets and no star system. It’s a reality check and only your performance matters. I can also speak in my mother tongue, which always helps me in my performance.” [17]
Sabry became the first Arab woman to ever receive the Starlight Cinema Award of the Venice Film Festival in 2019.[16]
The 2020s
In 2020 Netflix announced that it was partnering with Sabry to develop Finding Ola, a reboot of her 2010 I Want to Get Married (Ayiza Atgawez) series. For the first time, Sabry also assumed the role of executive producer.[6] Released in February 2022, the series finds Ola, now a mother of two, trying to rebuild her life when her husband announces he wants a separation. The series made it to the streamer’s Top 10 worldwide and also kept the number one spot for three weeks in the Arab-speaking world.
In 2022 Sabry would again collaborate with Marwan Hamad (for the fourth time) in his next record-breaking blockbuster Kira and El Gin and opposite Ahmed Ezz and Karim Abdel Aziz. An anti-colonial drama adapted from Ahmed Mourad’s novel 1919 (published in 2014), the film is set during the Egyptian independence movement of the 1920s. It was well received by critics and a massive box office success, breaking the previous records held by Hamad's 2019 hit Blue Elephant 2.[18]
In 2023, Sabry starred in Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary Four Daughters about a mother and two daughters’ recounting of the traumatic loss of the two older daughters who left the family to join ISIS. Sabry is one of several actresses who played out key scenes involving the mother and departed sisters. Universally acclaimed, Four Daughters took home three prizes at Cannes 2023 and was in contention for both Best Documentary as well the short-list for Best International Feature Film at the 2023 Oscars.[19]
In 2024 Sabry took on the starring role of Amira in Moftaraq Toroq (Crossroads), the Arabic adaptation of the popular American series The Good Wife. It launched in June to top ratings across the MENA region.[20] Sabry and the writers were intentional in adapting the storyline to regional cultural norms. For example, they had to tread carefully about showing how her character interacted with her boss, a relationship filled with sexual tension in the original series.[21] Later in 2024, she returned to the small screen in season two of Finding Ola and once again serving as executive producer.
Sabry, who had always represented herself, signed with the talent agency CAA in 2023 explaining that in addition to identifying more acting roles, she was interested to find more female-driven projects for her Salam Production company.[6] Sabry has often been critical about the Arab film industry 's discrimination toward women. "We face many challenges. We are paid far less than our male counterparts, and we also get less exposure than they do. There are also far fewer scripts written for female characters. Male characters predominate and remain the motor of Arab cinema. Producers and distributors generally still don’t see actresses in the region as powerhouses who can boost box office revenues. Also, women who become professional actors are held to a different standards than men."[9]
Sabry married Egyptian businessman Ahmad el Sherif in 2008 and has two daughters.[2] She has dual-nationalities of her home country Tunisia and her country of residence Egypt.[23] She was previously engaged to Syrian actor Bassel Khaiat.[24][25]
