Khaled Khella shows hidden struggles ^{CEFR B2}

Khaled Khella is an independent Egyptian filmmaker known for films that reveal the hidden struggles of young people in urban Egypt. Born in 1992 in Helwan, south of Cairo, he began by making videos for social media and later turned to short films that examine desire, power and everyday survival in city life. He sees filmmaking as a moral calling and seeks to reach wider audiences while addressing urgent social issues.

His three‑minute short "Dunya wa Akhira" ("Life and the Afterlife") brought his first international recognition; it shows a young man torn between chasing a thief who stole his phone and responding to the mosque's call to prayer, and it screened at festivals in Australia, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands and Greece. Khella followed this with "The Landlord", a psychological drama set inside a small apartment building in which he aimed for a complex portrait of a person in power, working closely with actress Hagar El Sarrag to create a tense atmosphere about safety and dignity at home.

"Egyptian Misery" (2017) brought wider attention. Produced for about 3,000 Egyptian pounds (roughly USD 175 at the time) and based on anonymous confessions sent to a Facebook page, Khella reviewed thirty stories and dramatized four, profiling eight young Egyptians. The film contains startling scenes — for example a bread seller repeating a bleak line about being useless, a young man who has sex with a teddy bear, and a man tricked by a friend pretending to be a Lebanese woman online — and Khella cast mostly non‑professional actors through an open Facebook call to preserve natural reactions. Audience response was mixed; some viewers recognised themselves, others rejected the film, and Khella suggests the suffering may persist because many do not see it as a problem.

Practical challenges include securing permits for street scenes and persuading collaborators to work without pay. Other films include "130 km to Heaven" (2015), shown at the Beirut International Film Festival, and "Public Indecency" (2023), which won second prize for its screenplay at a workshop during the first El Gouna Film Festival and later streamed on Viu. Khella plans to continue making films that address social issues and to seek broader audiences.