Adam Bousdoukos

Adam Bousdoukos — Biography

Adam Bousdoukos is one of the faces most closely linked with the films of Fatih Akın in German cinema. He has appeared in nearly all of Akın's films, and Soul Kitchen (2009), in which he played the lead and wrote the script, sits at the centre of his career. He has acted in more than fifty films and series since 1995; away from the screen he ran a restaurant in Hamburg and supports a charity association.

The son of Greek parents, he grew up in the Altona district of Hamburg, played small parts in commercials as a teenager and then took classes at the Stage School Hamburg. His work with Akın began in 1995 with the short film Sensin – Du bist es!. Kısa ve Acısız (Short Sharp Shock, 1998) brought his first major award: he and fellow leads Mehmet Kurtuluş and Aleksandar Jovanovic received the Leopard award at the Locarno Festival, and the Grimme-Preis in 2001. Solino (2002), Duvara Karşı (2004), Kebab Connection (2004), Aşka Ruhunu Kat and Kesik (2014) followed.

Later credits include Ein Geschenk der Götter, Dimitrios Schulze, Tatort: Der Fall Holdt, Smuggling Hendrix (2018), Altın Eldiven (2019) and Skin Deep (2022). For almost ten years he ran the Sotiris restaurant in Ottensen, Hamburg, and since 2009 he and friends have supported the Soul Kids association.