Director: Amr Salama
Nationality: Egypt
Director Bio: Amr Salama is an Egyptian filmmaker and screenwriter who was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He began his career by primarily directing short movies and commercials before releasing his first feature film, ON A DAY LIKE TODAY, in 2008. He then directed the hit film EXCUSE MY FRENCH, which was based on, by his own admission, his experiences at a public middle school in Egypt after his return from Saudi Arabia. The Egyptian Censorship Board rejected the film on the grounds that the film portrayed sectarianism that “did not exist in the country†and that the film was provocative enough to cause a civil war before finally being released in 2014 to great acclaim by audiences and critics alike. What would become his second creation while EXCUSE MY FRENCH jumped the hurdles of the Censorship Board was the AIDS-themed drama ASMAA, which earned him international attention when it premiered at the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival, where it won Best Arab Director before winning another two awards at the Fribourg International Film Festival. Salama then co-directed the documentary TAHRIR 2011: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE POLITICIAN, which scored UNESCO’s CICT-IFTC Award at the 68th Venice International Film Festival and numerous other international awards. After that, his 2017 film SHEIKH JACKSON world premiered at the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival, where it received excellent reviews before opening the first edition of the El Gouna Film Festival and going on to become Egypt s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards that year. It has since received several awards at several regional and international film festivals. Since then, Salama has worked on several other provocative and/or revolutionary hits that went on to become smashing successes, including MADE IN EGYPT, TAYEA, the first Egyptian Netflix original series PARANORMAL, Shahid’s original series BIMBO and more recently; BARA EL MANHAG. Amr Salama s films have participated in dozens of national and international festivals and won many awards, most notably the Toronto, Cairo, El Gouna, Carthage, Munich, Washington, Abu Dhabi, Freiburg, London, Zurich, and Palm Springs film festivals.
