Fawaz Al-Matrouk is a director with festival awards, writer with stories in print, producer with high-end clients, and experience across continents and cultures. He also flies airplanes VFR.
Fawaz Al-Matrouk draws on his personal experience to explore stories of our power to confront the unknown. He was born in Kuwait and grew up in Canada. His earliest memories are as a refugee when his family escaped the invasion of Saddam Hussein. Fawaz completed a BA in history at University of Toronto, where he studied Arab-Western relations, and an MFA in cinematic arts at University of Southern California, where his thesis film To Rest in Peace was mentored by Ridley Scott.
His short films have played in festivals worldwide, including Cannes, Dubai, and Clermont-Ferrand, winning awards for writing, directing, and audience choice. Now he directs commercials internationally, including two Subaru spots for Japanese television, and writes science fiction, published in Nature and the classic Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His feature development has won SFFILM Rainin Grant and took part in the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive and the Whistler Screenwriters Lab.
His most recent work is Anwar, starring Kerry Bishé (Argo, Halt & Catch Fire) and Jay Abdo (Herzog’s Queen of the Desert). The short explores personal themes through a science fiction lens, and is based on a short story written through the Clarion West Writers Workshop 2023.
