Aziz Tazi

Aziz Tazi is a Moroccan-born LA-based filmmaker featured in Forbes Africa "30 Under 30" in 2016. His short film Imago opened the Arab Film Festival in 2013. His documentary Arab Stories aired on PBS in 2014. Tazi has also directed music videos for artists like French rap legend La Fouine. Night Walk, which was shot in five cities on two continents, is his directorial debut. It stars Golden Globe and BAFTA winner Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Sean Stone and many more. It premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival in April 2019 and won the "Best Screenplay" and "Best Supporting Actor" awards at Prague Film Festival in August 2019. It is set to be released theatrically in the summer of 2020. Aziz Tazi's dreams of becoming a filmmaker were first seeded when he was a child making video game films in Casablanca, Morocco. The videos went viral and some were awarded "Best Visual Effects" and "Most Innovative" by a popular gaming website after he turned 15. In 2012, Aziz received funding from his engineering school in Paris and French bank BNP Paribas to direct and produce Imago. This psychological thriller about paranoia and madness was screened at international film festivals and opened the Arab Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2013. Pursuing his studies at the world-renowned University of California at Berkeley, Aziz made a documentary about successful Arab leaders in the U.S. called "Arab Stories: Bay Area," which aired on PBS. After a year of working as a creative director for the Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, spearheading an ambitious effort to make UC Berkeley's entrepreneurship education available to everyone online, he moved to L.A. where he became the festival manager of the Arab Film Festival. After three years of living here, he is now shooting his first feature film "Night Walk" between L.A. and Morocco along with a star-studded cast including the likes of Golden Globe and BAFTA winner Mickey Rourke, Oscar-nominee Eric Roberts, Tiny Lister, Patrick Kilpatrick, Richard Tyson, and Louis Mandylor. Aziz made the cover of Morocco's highly-acclaimed "Challenge" magazine and was voted "Top 50 Men of the Year 2013" by VH Magazine, next to prominent Moroccan politicians and businessmen. He was also featured on Forbes Africa's "30 Under 30" in 2016 as a leading change-maker under 30 years old.