Joel Basman

Joel Basman is a Swiss-Israeli actor born on January 23, 1990. He is best known for portraying Franz Kafka in the 2024 ARD miniseries Kafka.

Basman was born in Zurich, Switzerland, to a Swiss Christian mother and an Israeli-Jewish father, both of whom worked as tailors in the Swiss fashion industry. Raised in the Aussersihl neighborhood, he grew up bilingual, speaking both Swiss-German and Hebrew. He has an older sister who lives in Israel.

Basman began his acting endeavors at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, participating in a youth-theatre project in 2003 and performing alongside students in their final projects in 2004 and 2005. He went on to attend the European Film Actor School, completing his studies in October 2008.

His screen career began in 2004 when he played the role of a bold teenager named Zizou in the weekly soap opera Lüthi und Blanc. In 2007, director Tobias Ineichen cast Basman in the lead role of an autistic boy in the film Jimmie.

Following these early roles, Basman received industry recognition for his performances in 2008. In February 2008, he earned a Shooting Star award for his portrayal of a Russian teenager in the Dominique de Rivaz film Luftibus. Later that year, in September, he won the Schweizer Fernsehpreis (Swiss TV-Prize) in the film category, followed by an award for best lead role from Cinema Tous Ecrans in October.

In subsequent years, Basman expanded his filmography across television, film, and interactive media. He played Bertel in the 2012 three-part television film Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (Our mothers, our fathers) and appeared as Pascal in the Swiss television film Ziellos (Aimless). In 2016, he portrayed the character Sebastien Leclercq in the game Late Shift. He later starred in the lead role of the 2018 film The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch, which was acquired by Netflix.