Biographie
Reem Morsi is an Egyptian-Canadian writer, director, and producer working between Canada, Egypt, and the US. Before becoming a filmmaker, she spent a decade as a professional scuba diver and a human rights officer at the United Nations and various international organizations.
Her debut feature film as writer, director, and producer, Hysteria, released in 2022, blends multiple genres—Magical Realism, Comedy, Psychological Thriller, and Horror—through three stories centered on the theme of Islamophobia. She also directed The Last Mark, a thriller/drama selected for TIFF Selects in 2021. Additionally, Reem directed two episodes of the CBC Gem series Virgins, including the series finale released on CBC Gem in 2022. Her third feature film, Queen Tut, is slated for release in 2022.
Morsi's feature script Bootleg earned the Rainin Screenwriting Grant from the San Francisco Film Society in 2016 and won the Telefilm Canada New Voices Award at the 2017 Toronto Screenwriters Conference. The film is scheduled for production in 2023. She was among 10 participants in the 2018 Berlinale Script Lab, where both she and Bootleg received special recognition at the Berlinale Talents Opening Ceremony and throughout the program. Subsequently, Reem and Bootleg took part in the Realness Pan African Screenwriting Residency and the Cannes Film Festival Atelier des Cinemas du Monde.
Her filmography includes Their Feast (2012 TIFF, BBC, Cine Sud), Nostalgia (2015, WIFTV), The Door (Whistler 2016; Best Drama at the 2017 Yorkton Film Festival; Audience Choice Award and Best Screenplay at the 2018 WIFT Showcase), and Show & Tell (2016), which won the WIFT/BravoFact pitch competition and Golden Sheaf Awards for Best Director, Best Short Subject, and Best Emerging Director at the 2017 Yorkton Film Festival. Reem also won the Canadian National Genre Competition by WIFTV for her sci-fi series concept, Fish.
She has participated in Berlinale Talents and Script Station (2012 and Bootleg in 2018), TIFF Talent Lab (2016), and CFC Directors’ and WIDC Directors’ labs (2014/2015). Reem was a recipient of The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s inaugural Apprenticeship Program for Female Directors, during which she shadowed the director of The Handmaid’s Tale. She was also selected for Women in View’s 2xMore 2017 Directors’ Lab and directed an episode of Sinking Ship Entertainment’s Dino Dana (TVOKids/Amazon Prime). Furthermore, she wrote and directed an episode of My Perfect Landing (Family Channel/Netflix).
