Amel Guellaty
Writer / Director
Tunisia
Amel Guellaty, born in 1988, is a Tunisian director and photographer. After studying law at the Sorbonne, she began working in the cinema as an assistant on several feature films such as “Après Mai” by Olivier Assayas, “ Foreign Body” Raja Amari, “or “La Blessure” by Abdellatif Kechiche.
In 2017 she direct her first short film “Black Mamba” 20’ produced by Atlas Vision. Black Mamba has been selected in more than 60 international film festival and won 15 prices. Black Mamba has been bought by Canal+ in France and Canal 5 in Italie.
In parallel to her work in the cinema, Amel enrolled in 2014 at the “International Center of Photography” (ICP) in New York and began working as a photographer.
Right now she in preparing her second short film “Like Boys!” (shooting planed in April 2020) and her first feature film “Where the Wind Comes From“.
Project
Where the Wind Comes From
Having grown up together in a poor suburb, Alyssa, 18, and Mehdi, 23, have been intimate friends since childhood. Alyssa is a rebellious teenager in charge of her troubled family. Mehdi is a shy young man who suffers from vitiligo, and despite being a graduate, struggles to find work. To escape their harsh realities, Mehdi invents stories through his surrealist drawings, and Alyssa lives, whenever she can, in an imaginary world where she is free. One day, Alyssa learns about a drawing contest on the other side of the country, which would grant the winner an internship in Germany. She sees it as an opportunity to change the course of their lives and leave the country, putting their friendship to the test, the duo embarks on an adventurous road trip across Tunisia, during which they discover the best and the worst of their own country and of each other. Mehdi doesn’t win the contest but both emerge completely changed and grown by this adventure.
