ismaël

ismaël is a filmmaker, a visual artist, and a writer.

He directed Black Medusa (Tiger Competition, IFFR 2021), Fragments of self-phone-destruction (awarded at Experimental and Different Cinema Festival, Paris 2019), Leila’s Blues (premiered at Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight 2018), Babylon (Grand Prix, FID Marseilles 2012) among others. He also produced The Last of Us (Lion of the Future, Venice 2016).

During the second half of 2023, ismaël finished three new films, among them: Hackers of the Borders, a documentary shot over several years around Syrian refugees in Lebanon (international co-production supported by the CNC, Red Sea Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund).

As a visual artist, he exhibited photography works, video art, printed works, and multimedia installations at several venues. As a writer, he published an essay on Tunisian cinema, a poetry collection (Letters to Death, Toulouse, 2009), and numerous poems, papers, articles, and short essays in both printed and online publications.

After a year of residency in Paris writing the screenplay for his next feature film, he is now back in his hometown Tunis to prep the shoot: a realistic and intimate take on zombie movies set to be shot between Tunisia, France, and Tahiti. It will be ismaël’s fourth feature-length film and his second narrative one.

Filmography

(selection) Babylon (2012, doc, co-dir), Leila’s Blues (2018, short, co-dir), Fragments of self-phone-destruction (2018, short), Fragments of self-phone-destruction II (2019, short), Black Medusa (2021, co-dir), Hackers of the Borders (2023), The Sunflowers of the Moon (in development)