Alaa Eddine Aljem

Alaa Eddine ALJEM (1988, Morocco) is an Italian-Moroccan screenwriter and director born in Rabat. He studied cinema at ESAVM then at INSAS in Brussels.

Alaa's films have participated in several festivals around the world. His latest short film The Desert Fish won the Grand Prize, the Critics' Prize and the Screenplay Prize at the National Film Festival and was highly acclaimed internationally.

The screenplay for his first feature film The Unknown Saint won an award at the 68th Locarno Film Festival, and was selected for the Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde in Cannes, and for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

In 2016 Alaa was designated as one of the five Arab Stars of Tomorrow by Screen International magazine, with a ceremony in Dubai.

Since 2017 Alaa co-writes and collaborates with several international film projects. In 2019, he released his first feature film The Unknown Saint, a burlesque fable which had its world premiere at the Cannes Critics' Week and was acclaimed by French and international critics. The film was distributed in several countries and preselected for the Oscars in the category of Best foreign film.

In 2021, Alaa was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic.