Eli Jean Tahchi is a Lebanese Canadian filmmaker based in Montreal, Quebec. He is most noted as a two-time Prix Iris nominee for Best Short Documentary, receiving nods at the 24th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2022 for Sometimes I Wish I Was on a Desert Island (Y’a des fois où j’aimerais me trouver sur une île déserte), and at the 26th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2024 for Outside Center.
A graduate of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, he moved to Canada in 2011 to study film at the Université de Montréal and the Institut national de l'image et du son. He later stated that moving to Quebec helped to establish his identity as an "Arab-Quebecer-LGBTQ-citizen-of-the-world artist".
Sometimes I Wish I Was on a Desert Island, about the social isolation of LGBTQ Muslims, was made as part of The Curve, a National Film Board of Canada series of short films on people's experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Outside Centre, about a Jamaican immigrant finding community with a gay rugby team after immigrating to Germany, was made as a student film in his studies at INIS, but became the first INIS student film ever to be acquired for commercial distribution.
Filmography
- Geometry - 2014
- She Is Lars - 2014
- The Migrant Woman (La Femme migrante) - 2015
- By the Wind (Au gré du vent) - 2016
- The Migrant Mixtape (La Cassette Migrante) - 2017
- Days of Rage (Jours de rage) - 2019
- Fissure - 2019
- Sometimes I Wish I Was on a Desert Island (Y’a des fois où j’aimerais me trouver sur une île déserte) - 2020
- Neighbors in My Backyard (Des voisins dans ma cour) - 2021
- Outside Center - 2023
References
- "L'exposition No man's land : Entrevue avec l'artiste Eli-Jean Tahchi". Ici Radio-Canada Première, June 2, 2022.
- Naomie Gelper, "La 24e Gala Québec Cinéma se tient ce soir, voici les lauréats". Métro, June 5, 2022.
- Éric Lavallée, "Prix Iris 2024: Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person Leads “Quebec Oscars” Noms". Ioncinema, October 9, 2024.
- ^ Samuel Larochelle, "Eli Jean Tahchi: The Importance of Telling Outsiders’ Stories". Canada Media Fund, November 20, 2020.
- "Le distributeur Travelling acquiert un film de L’inis, en première mondiale à Vancouver". Qui Fait Quoi, October 2, 2023.