Tarek Ehlail


Tarek Ehlail is a German film director, screenwriter and film producer.

Life

Ehlail, son of a Palestinian father and German mother, became as teenager a punk and worked for about 10 years as body piercer. In 2003 he started the production company Sabotakt which produced mainly special underground projects and independent films. Together with Matthias Lange Ehlail found the first German 'Punkfightclub', the Sabotakt Boxparty, a punk and martial arts event which toured through Europe.

Work

In 2008 Tarek Ehlail produced together with Matthias Lange his debut film Chaostage - We are Punks! starring Ben Becker, Martin Semmelrogge, Ralf Richter, Stipe Erceg, Claude-Oliver Rudolph, Helge Schneider and Uwe Fellensiek. The Saarlandmedien supported 2009 his cinema film Gegengerade – Niemand siegt am Millerntor about the FC St. Pauli. The film cast included Mario Adorf, Moritz Bleibtreu and Fabian Busch and was selected into the competition at the 'Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis' in 2011. In 2011 and 2012 the documentaries Alles in Allem about a tour of the electro band Egotronic and GLAUBENSKRIEGER about the annual Internationalen Soldatenwallfahrt to Lourdes were produced by Ehlail.
In March 2013 Ehlail published his first book Piercing is not a crime. The book tells 33 anecdotes from the time when Ehlail worked as tattoo artist. The book cover shows him together with the tattoo model Lexy Hell.
Ehlails movie Volt, a science fiction drama, is filmed 2015 as German-French co-production by augenschein-Filmproduktion and Les Films D’Antoine around Cologne and supported by the German Federal Film Board. The cast includes Ayọ, Benno Fürmann, Denis Moschitto and Stipe Erceg.

Filmography (selection)

Films