Trance Family Lebanon
Born & raised in Sydney, Australia, the 25 year old film maker Wissam Abdallah is from an originally Lebanese family. At the age of 8 he moved back to Lebanon for high school where he spent 9 years & came back to Australia & had his degree from SAE Institute. Working as a club bouncer & a rifleman in the Aus. Army, it took him 70 hours of work weekly to finally raise his 22.000$ initial investment in gear, until he had the opportunity to shoot a small club in Sydney. That was his first & last freebie job, and it was the first chapter of his journey. “What drove me from there to reach some of the highest levels in dance music industry has to be my love for music”.
Wissam is also currently part of ‘Epic Cinema’ crew who film the world’s biggest Dance events including Tomorrowland & as well as the ‘Final Kid’ crew responsible for ‘Relive Ultra Miami Aftermovie’. “Tomorrowland is an amazing experience and being part of the production of an aftermovie that gets millions of view is an extreme honor”. Well, we bet it is!
Last year Wissam shot & directed Dash Berlin’s video ‘Jar of Hearts’ in Mexico with Christina Novelli. This was his first video for a DJ in DJ Mag Top10 & Dash’s management were so confident in him thus giving him full control over the direction of the video. “The crowd were electric! Dash Berlin’s set went for 4 hours & by the end of it, I was completely won over by the Mexican party goers. The energy was at such a high level the entire time”.
Recently, Wissam shot & directed Gareth Emery’s new video “Dynamite”. The music video was shot in Miami during Music Week. “I really wanted to capture the amazing vibe that surrounds Miami during Music Week”. The footage was filmed mainly at Ultra & some at Avicii Hotel & Space Club. Wissam was also lucky to have 2 flights over Miami for the video, at Sunset & over UMF. “It really was a crazy week as I was there to shoot for the official UMF aftermovie as well as Gareth’s music video”.
“There’s also the video I did for Lebanon: This has been something I have wanted to do since the first day of film school. I am lucky and proud to call myself both an Australian and Lebanese but having spent 9 years in Lebanon, from age 8 until age 17, means that Lebanon has a very special place in my heart. I feel like no matter how hard I try I couldn’t possibly capture this amazing country’s true beauty and essence but I gave it a shot. I only had a three days to film as much of Lebanon as possible. I tried to show a few different sides of Lebanon. Most people I know imagine Lebanon to be a backward conservative society torn by never ending conflict. That can’t be further from the truth. The truth is that Lebanon is called ‘The Paris of the Middle East’ for a reason.”
To end with, 2013 was a big year for Wissam, he flown all over the world shooting at the world’s leading festivals and the best DJs on planet as well as some weeks of shooting in Africa. In 2013 Wissam spent more time abroad than at home. “I learnt how to sleep on flights and in cars as I went from one shoot straight to another. I got the experience for the first time how exciting it is when a person you don’t know from a country you’ve never visited knows your name 7 tell you they love your work”. Wissam owes his success to people who believed in him, who gave him the opportunities, his mentor Abraham Joffe, Stijn Verlinde & Kevin Gansemans for giving him the break in the EU Market & all who supported & encouraged him so far. Here’s his showreel of 2 minutes that he had to select from a 50TB worth of footage.
Some people tell him he got the best job in the world, well we can’t agree more. “This is my passion, I am Wissam” & this is “Capturing Euphoria”.
