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Kida Khodr Ramadan was born in Beirut on October 8 1976. After his family fled the civil war in Lebanon, he grew up in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Already as a teen, Ramadan wanted to be a performer, and he became part of the local breakdance and hip hop scene. In 2002, former social worker and filmmaker Neco Çelik discovered him as an actor for the drama "Alltag". This was followed by supporting roles in "Yugotrip" (2004) and the comedy "Kebab Connection" (2005).
In 2006, Ramadan made a memorable turn as a Berlin gang member in Detlev Buck's "Knallhart" ("Tough Enough"), and also had a recurring role as a police detective in the TV series "Der Kriminalist". He then starred opposite Ingo Naujoks and Thomas Sarbacher in the award-winning tragicomedy "Underdogs" (2007), and was one of the leads in Hendrik Handloegten's "Tatort" episode "Der tote Chinese" (2008).
In addition to being a prolific, much-in-demand TV actor, Ramadan also continued to appear in theatrical releases. His performance in "Ummah – Unter Freunden" (2013) garnered him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 2014 German Film Awards.
Ramadan went on to guest-star on several TV shows (including "Tatort", "Ein Fall für zwei", "Vier Frauen und ein Todesfall") and was also part of the TV ensemble comedy "Anderst schön" (2015).
Following roles in "Herbert" (2015) and "Tschiller: Off Duty" (2016), he starred in the theatrical releases "3 Türken & 1 Baby" (2015), "Wie Männer über Frauen reden" (2016), "Mein Blind Date mit dem Leben" ("My Blind Date with Life", 2017) and "Berlin Falling" (2017).
His leading performance as a Lebanese gangster boss in the miniseries "4 Blocks" (2017) garnered Ramadan a nomination for the 2018 German Television Award. The same year, he starred opposite Edin Hasanovic and Moritz Bleibtreu in the gangster drama "Nur Gott kann mich richten" ("Only God Can Judge Me").
Ramadan continued being a prominent face on TV as well as on the big screen with appearances in the Danish-Swedish thriller series "Greyzone" (2018, as terrorist) and the German series "Blockbustaz - Willkommen in der Hood" to name but a few. On the big screen, he played supporting roles in the comedy film "Verpiss Dich, Schneewittchen" (2018, as the brother of the main character portrayed by Bülent Ceylan) and in the thriller "Spielmacher" (2018, as a Russian gangster). He starred in a lead role in Detlev Buck's "Asphaltgorillas" ("Asphalt Gorillas", 2018) as a gangster in Berlin who runs into difficulties with one of his sidekicks.
He had other leading roles as a nurse in the crook comedy "Goldfische" ("The Goldfish", 2019) with Tom Schilling and as a blind professional killer in the thriller "Man from Beirut" (2019), in which his daughter Dunya Ramadan played the second leading role and which screened at several festivals worldwide.
Ramadan remained a highly sought-after actor over the next few years. He played a monk in the Hesse adaptation "Narziss und Goldmund" ("Narcissus and Goldmund", DE/AT 2020), the father of a rape victim in the crime thriller "Borowski und der Fluch der weißen Möwe" (2020, TV) of the "Tatort" series and the father of the young, Jewish main character in the social drama "Ein nasser Hund" ("Wet Dog", 2020).
At the Munich film festival Pop-Up 2020, Ramadan's directorial work "In Berlin wächst kein Orangenbaum" premiered, a Berlin neighborhood milieu study in which he also played the lead role and for which he wrote the screenplay with Constantin Lieb. He took on smaller roles in, among others, the coming-of-age and coming-out story "Hochwald" ("Why Not You", AT/BE 2020) and Detlev Buck's "Tatort" episode "Alles kommt zurück" (2021).
At the Hof Film Festival in October 2021, Ramadan presented his film "Égalité," which he also co-penned with Constantin Lieb. The family drama is about a desperate father whose 14-year-old daughter (Dunya Ramadan) has gone blind after a seemingly harmless tonsil operation. The film was released in theaters in January 2022.