Biography

In 2003, Elkaslassy began to study acting at the Haderch actor's studio in Tel-Aviv. While still a student, she began acting in Israeli television and films, including Srugim, Shiva, The Ran Quadruplets, My Lovely Sister, and Yona. In 2013, Elkaslassy completed the filmmaking track at the Minshar School for Art in Tel Aviv and graduated with honors.

Her thesis film, which took on the subject of domestic violence, was produced with support from the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund and the Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts.

Elkaslassy wrote, directed, and starred in the short film Here I Am... There You Are, which was an Official Selection at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, an Official Selection at the Seattle International Film Festival, and selected for the Official Competition at the American Film Institute's AFI Fest. The film received a nomination for the Ophir, the Israeli Academy of Film and Television award, for Best Short Film of 2014. Following the film's success, Elkaslassy was invited to be a judge in the official competition at the Vilnius International Film in 2014.

In 2015, she directed the second season of the television series Breaking Waves. The show was nominated for Best Youth Program that year, and Elkaslassy received a Best Director nomination at the Israeli Television Academy Awards. In 2016, she was awarded a grant from the Yehoshua Rabinovitch Foundation for the Arts to develop a feature-length screenplay based on my short film, Here I Am... There You Are.

In 2017, Elkaslassy directed two short films for the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel. The Ministry of Education continues to screen these films in high schools across the country to this day. That same year, her original story Arugam Bay was adapted into an international television series. The screenplay was written with the assistance of the Israel Film Fund, and the show is slated for production in 2022, to be shot in Israel and Sri Lanka.

That same year, Elkaslassy directed the pilot for the Israeli adaptation of the French series, My Little Company, which she intends to produce in several countries as a web series. Meanwhile, she founded a venture that encourages women to integrate into the film industry. In 2018 and 2019, the venture collaborated with the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and awarded scholarships and production grants to single mothers.

- IMDb mini biography by: Dikla Jika Elkaslassy