Assem Laalami Brings Twenty Years of Film and Studio Work to THE E.L Signature

Every story needs a place to be told. Behind a polished lecture, a live broadcast or an institutional film, there is usually a studio, and behind that studio, someone who understood what it needed to be.

For Assem Laalami, that understanding was shaped over more than twenty years in film, television, production and digital education. He began as an artist long before he became a technician, and the habit of starting early has stayed with him.

Today he is the founder and sole manager of THE E.L Signature Media Production Company, where he works as a media solutions consultant, director and executive editor, turning two decades of experience into a venture of his own.

An artist before anything else

Assem's creative life started early. At six, he began to paint. At seven, he joined a theatre company. By fourteen, he had signed his first theatre staging.

As a teenager, he found another outlet in the energy of the city. Breakdance and deejaying led him to co-found Positive Attitude and to manage the group Big Boss. He also took part in organising the first Fête de la Musique held in Morocco.

His studies began in landscape architecture. He soon redirected his education toward the field he had dreamed of: cinema. In his own words, he is an artist by birth, and it was out of love for film that he chose this path.

A series that needed saving

Assem started editing after only one year of study. He had been looking for an observation internship as an assistant director when he was offered something far bigger: the role of lead editor on a series.

That series was Al Gharib, a thirty-episode fantasy production from 2006. It was shot in full HD, with compositing, matte painting and stunt work for the fight scenes, which he describes as a first of its kind in Morocco.

The shoot was difficult. Assem says he helped rescue the series by proposing ideas and concepts that had not yet been tried in the country.

It opened ten years of work in film and television as a lead editor, on TV series, feature films and broadcast projects. He trained with Mohamed Ismail and collaborated with Abdelhay Laraki on Les Ailes de l'Amour. With Image Factory, he worked across fiction, documentaries, music videos and advertising.

Six months to build a department

From May 2016 to May 2025, Assem spent nine years at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P). With his late friend and colleague Taha Marhoum, he co-founded the university's audiovisual department and its Digital Learning Lab (DLL).

The two had six months. In that time they built a professional studio to international standards and produced the university's institutional film, screened before His Majesty King Mohammed VI at the inauguration. Assem directed it: it was his first work as a director, and from there he went on to direct documentaries, advertising and multi-camera live streams.

When His Majesty visited the Lab, Assem greeted him and spoke with him. Together with Taha, he promised to extend the digitisation of courses across the country, refusing the idea of a Morocco moving at two speeds. Assem names this as his greatest achievement.

From one campus to a whole country

The promise became practical work. According to Assem, he and Taha designed and built professional studios for most of Morocco's public universities, in cities across the Kingdom.

At UM6P he engineered digital learning infrastructure and oversaw MOOC production for international platforms such as edX. His responsibilities also included the university's institutional films, multi-camera live coverage and highlights of major UM6P and OCP events, and OCPTV VIP, a highly secured web TV broadcast live, with no room for error.

He later directed a high-tech studio in Rabat devoted to live multi-stream broadcasting, VIP institutional productions and MOOCs for OFPPT. Assem says the Digital Learning Lab was a first in Africa and the Arab world, and that he directed the first Arab-African MOOC published on edX.

A company with a clear next step

In 2025, he founded THE E.L Signature Media Production Company, which he runs as founder and sole manager. It works with institutions and businesses on corporate communication, events and digital education.

Its services cover web creation and digital identity, short-form video for Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikTok, post-production with colour grading, visual effects and motion graphics, and live streaming with multi-camera switching for hybrid events.

The next step is practical. To grow, the company needs the right equipment, and Assem is looking for investors or an investment loan to acquire it.

A mindset worth keeping

Looking back, Assem's advice to his younger self is simple: never give up, because every problem has a solution as long as you have a brain. To fellow audiovisual technicians, he adds a second principle.

Value yourself and your work. Having ideas is good, he says, but specialisation is what leads to excellence.

Follow Assem Laalami for his work in post-production, live production and digital education: @assem_laalami on Instagram and Assem Laalami on LinkedIn.