Director Biography - Akim El Ouardi

Kim “Akim” El Ouardi, born in 1989, is a luxemburgish-moroccan filmmaker and cinematographer based in Luxemburg. His passion for film began as a teenager, starting to experiment with miniDV-Cameras, Editing and the combination with Music. This lead him to pursue Motion-Graphics studies in Berlin from 2010-2015, focusing his attention on 3D Animation and Visual FX. In 2017 he rediscovered his initial passion for filming and started to work as freelance videographer while simultaneously finding his way into the film industry. He is now working as a freelance Cameraman, Colorist, Digital Imaging Technician and Set Lighting Technician.

Realizing how resource intensive and polluting the film industry is, he developed a strong interest in creating low-budget, low-tech films with a guerilla filmmaking approach. He doesn't consider these constraints as limits but rather as doors to a creative space open for experimentation, to a collaborative approach and to finding DIY solutions.

Since 2018 he is delving into the world of analogue film, shooting short experimental films on Super8 and documenting his travels through film and photography. In the darkroom he is currently testing different filmstocks and developers, further exploring the medium's texture and materiality.

His works are rooted in the domains of Screendance, Documentary, Fiction and Art Performances. He is especially focusing on the genre Screendance, the convergence between performance, film and sound. The universality of the body and musical language enables him to narrate non-verbally, bypassing any linguistic borders. His search for a “common language” is anchored in the multicultural context of Luxemburg in which he grew up.