El Assal will represent the cinematic speciality at the Luxembourg Pavilion.
Egyptian-Luxembourgish director Adolf El Assal will participate in Dubai Expo 2020, with his short film Full Memory. The film will be screened at the Luxembourg Pavilion from January 15 to 30.
The Luxembourg Pavilion is an art project based on Connecting Minds, where eight artists from seven different artistic disciplines collaborate in implementing transdisciplinary projects. El Assal is representing the cinematic speciality.
Full Memory tells the story of Ziad, a young Syrian has left his country during the war ten years ago. He misses his old life and is very excited to have his brother visiting him. Ziad wants to show his brother how life in Europe is but he has to face the dark truth about his past and what has happened to him back home.
Dubai Expo 2020 is the first to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
El Assal was born in Alexandria, Egypt. He spent his early life between the UAE, UK, France, and Luxembourg. In 2008, El Assal received his Bachelor degree in Media and Cultural Studies at Kingston University in the UK.
In 2011, he directed the short film La Fameuse Route, which took part in more than 20 film festivals around the world and received five awards. In 2012, he produced and directed his first feature film Les Fameus Gars, which he successfully distributed in the French-speaking countries. El Assal’s second feature film Sawah had a strong international film festival run with over 100 festival selections, reaping 34 awards. His upcoming feature film Hooped is slated for 2023. El Assal has also directed five episodes of the Belgian comedy series Baraki.
El Assal is also a Berlinale Talents as well as an EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneur) and Screen Leaders Alumni. He is a European Film Academy member and he is working on the creative part of the Luxembourg pavilion at the Expo 2020 in Dubai.
