Kida Khodr Ramadan

Kida Khodr Ramadan — Biography

Kida Khodr Ramadan is one of the most noticed German television actors of recent years. He became widely known as the gang leader Ali "Toni" Hamady in 4 Blocks, a crime drama set among Berlin's Arab and Turkish communities, and the role earned him many of Germany's leading television awards. Besides acting he also directs and writes.

Born in Lebanon, he fled the civil war with his family to Germany and grew up in Berlin-Kreuzberg. He left school without a qualification and, as a teenager, joined street performances around the hip-hop and breakdance scene. The door to film opened through director Neco Çelik, whom he met at a summer camp: in 2003 he appeared in Alltag, followed by Kebab Connection, Underdogs and Phantomschmerz. In 2010 he made his stage debut at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Kaddisch für einen Freund, 3 Türken und ein Baby, Volt, Dimitrios Schulze and Nur Gott kann mich richten were later film roles, and he then joined the series KBV – Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse.

He wrote his first solo feature as director, In Berlin wächst kein Orangenbaum, with Juri Sternburg and produced it as well; it screened in the Munich Film Festival pop-up programme in 2020. For 4 Blocks he received the international press jury prize at Séries Mania in 2017, then the German Television Award and the Grimme Award in 2018. In 2018 he published a book with his friend Frederick Lau.