A Moroccan filmmaker. His works as a director include General, Here We Come! (1997), a documentary about Moroccan veterans of the French army that won the Special Jury Award at the Namur Film Festival in Belgium. His next film, The Silence of the Root Fields (1998), was awarded the Grand Prix at the International Festival of Environmental Film & Video in Paris. In 2001, his Ouarzazat Film was awarded the Best Mediterranean Documentary at the CMCA, and praised on the international circuit. In 2002, Essafi returned to Morocco where he made other documentaries before getting involved in public television for a 3-year period as an art director. His latest film, Wanted!, was commissioned by the 10th Sharjah Biennale and selected by the MoMA’s program of the Experimental Arab Film “Mapping Subjectivity.” Currently based in Casablanca, he lives between Morocco and Brazil.