Mahmoud Belakhel

Biography

http://www.belakhel.de

Mahmoud Belakhel was born and grew up in Tunis. He moved to Germany at the age of 19 and graduated in engineering at the TH Cologne. During a one-year exchange program at the French film school ENS Louis Lumière in Paris, where he learned to shoot on 16 and 35mm film, he discovered his love for cinematography and decided to pursue his path as a cinematographer instead of being an Engineer. The Short film“The Viewers“ was nominated in 2013 for the „Camerimage Filmfestival“ and more than 20 Filmfestivals worldwide.

Back in Germany, he took an Internship at ARRI which was followed by an Internship as a video operator at the Film-set of Lars von Trier on Nymphomaniac. After that, he studied Cinematography at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. During his studies, he shot different short films which were selected for international film festivals such as First Steps Award, Premiers Plans d’Angers and IFFR etc.

Fascinated by lighting and being always very involved in the preproduction process on each project, he equally discovered his strong Inclination towards commercials. The Spec Spot „Hotel Domspatz“ was awarded the Gold Audience Award at the Spotlight Festival. Both Spec Spots for Tupperware and Heineken were shortlisted for AICP. He graduates in 2018 and since then he has been working as a director of photography.

He shot commercials for renowned brands like Bosch, SBB, Lidl, DKB, Welt, ZDF, Dell; with Agencies such as JWT, Scholz and Friends, Oliver Voss, Ogilvy, Jung Von Matt, Publicis; and for Production Companies like CZAR, Cobblestone, Element-E, Simon & Paul and others.