Born in Morocco in 1983, Ismaël El Iraki studied directing at Femis School where he directed his short films Carcasse, African science fiction film set in the Sahara Desert (Short Film Corner Award at Cannes) and Harash, punk thriller in Casablanca (Attention Talent Prize and Special Mention of the jury in Clermont-Ferrand).
From there, as a Maghrebian filmmaker, he claimed the right to imagination and style, far from the naturalistic treatment of social subjects that often characterizes the cinema of the region. Passionate about music, he founded a concert recording company in Paris and produced photos for music bands as well as video installations for the Venice Film Festival.
At this 2020 Mostra, he presented in Official Selection his first feature film Zanka Contact (french title : Burning Casablanca), a genres movie, plural, somewhere between a rock film, a love story, a western and a Tarantino thriller. The singer Khansa Batma, the lead, won the Lion for the best actress Orizzonti there. The movie wase released in France in 2021 after a long career in festivals : Cinemed Montpellier (Jury Prize), London, Busan, Geneva, Karlovy Vary, Louxor (Best Film), Sao Paulo, Sarlat, Music & Cinema Marseille(Prize for directing), Shanghaï, Cabourg, Annonay (Best Film)…
Since then, he has been working on his next projects, including a family thriller set in the milieu of cannabis trafficking between Morocco and Spain: Les Fils de La Louve.
