Most people are already familiar with the blockbuster Sawah--the first fully Luxembourg-made film showing on Netflix--by the award-winning Luxembourg-Egyptian director and producer Adolf El Assal, who is also the founder of Wady Films.
For his next film, Hooped, which will be the second part of a planned trilogy, the producers are on the hunt for the main protagonist.
The main character should be Luxembourgish, “look like a 17-year-old, speak at least three languages [including English, French and German – Luxembourgish and Arabic is a plus]. Be super charismatic, funny and good looking. I am open to all shapes and sizes. What’s important is that the person should be charismatic and [potentially] have some experience in front of the camera,” explains the director.
The plot follows the life of the Adam, an ambitious 17-year-old basketball whiz with grand plans to build a business empire. The young lad is born in Egypt, raised in Luxembourg, sent to live with his rich uncle in Canada and then wrongfully deported to Egypt. The film will be shot mostly in Luxembourg, Germany and Canada.
The first rule of film making I learnt in film school was to tell the story of what you know. And that’s how the most unique stories come about.
To some degree, the trilogy mirrors the experience of the director who explains that the story of Samir in Sawah reflected how his parents arrived in Luxembourg.
“They wanted to go to Brussels. The train stopped in Luxembourg and then they got stuck here. But they loved it so much that they built their lives here,” he says.
In a similar way, his teenage experiences from the 90s, which saw him move from Luxembourg to the US in search of the “American dream” and back to the grand duchy--after an eye-opening experience at his uncle’s in the US--will be portrayed in Hooped.
“I'm searching worldwide for that gem,” says the director, who has already signed up Lebanese-German actor Kida Khodr Ramadan and German-Egyptian actress Tua El Fawwal for two roles in the film.
Hooped was among 19 film projects selected for funding by the Film Fund Luxembourg in 2020 with €60,000 earmarked for the production.
To apply, send an email to describing your profile.