Boasting a career spanning over 25 years, Egyptian film editor Ahmed Hafez has been a pioneering game-changer in film editing, presenting the final cuts of more than 40 TV series and films, not to mention ads and music videos. He has also received more than 25 local and international accolades and was inducted into the American Cinema Editors (ACE) society.
Hafez also rose to prominence in the global cinema industry owing to his outstanding editing skills, which qualified him to edit episodes three and four of Marvel’s new series Moon Knight, which was directed by Egyptian director Mohamed Diab.
Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1982, Hafez graduated from the Foreign Trade Department of the Faculty of Commerce. However, he started his editing career when he was still in high school in 1998, keeping up with the latest developments in film editing techniques, from using linear editing — a traditional tape-based editing system — to using non-linear editing, which is a computer-based editing system.
Hafez’s success in TV commercials started when he collaborated with director Hadi El-Bagoury on some of his most well-known ads.
He then collaborated with the successful director/writer duo Marwan Hamed and Ahmed Mourad on some of Egypt’s highest-grossing films. Together, they worked on THE BLUE ELEPHANT (2014), which gave Hafez good material to experiment with and garnered him a Special Jury Prize at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.
They then moved on to THE ORIGINALS — which won Hafez four awards — and then DIAMOND DUST (2018), which he regards as the closest film to his heart for its storytelling style and won him the Best Editing Award at the Arabian Cinema Awards.
After that, they collaborated on THE BLUE ELEPHANT: DARK WHISPERS (2019), which went on to become a huge box office hit with revenues surpassing EGP 102m before being superseded by Marwan Hamed’s book-to-screen KIRA & EL GEN, which is based on Mourad’s best-seller 1919. The film is currently the highest-earning picture in Egyptian cinema history with revenues exceeding EGP 118m.
Hafez also received international critical acclaim for his work when it was screened at several prestigious international world festivals, with his most recent festival entry being the Palestinian film AMIRA by Diab, which starred Saba Mubarak alongside Palestinian actor Ali Suliman.
Before that, Diab and Hafez had worked on CLASH (2016), which premiered in the Un Certain Regard Section of the 69th Cannes Film Festival.
American film critic Deborah Young from The Hollywood Reporter described his editing style as “rapid-fire editing” in her review of the film.
For his work in CLASH, Hafez received three awards at the Carthage Film Festival, Cairo Film Society Festival, and the Egyptian National Film Festival.
Hafez also collaborated with renowned director Amr Salama in SHEIKH JACKSON, which held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017.
In the same year, he edited the Jordanian-Turkish feature film The Guest – Aleppo Istanbul, starring Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak and written and directed by Turkish director Andaç Haznederoğlu. The film won him the Best Editing Award at the International Bosphorus Film Festival in Turkey.
He then edited El-Bagoury’s AL DAIF (The Guest), which held its world premiere at Black Nights Film Festival, where it garnered an Audience Award.
Hafez’s work spans a diverse range of genres, reflecting his innate ability, artistic sense, and propensity to develop and create in new and unexpected locations, starting with crime and suspense films like AL RAHINA (The Hostage) (2006), EL SHABAH (The Ghost) (2007), MASGOON TRANSIT (Prisoner in Transit) (2008), and AL MASLAHA (The Deal) (2012). These pictures ushered in a new period of Egyptian crime films and were able to achieve both financial and critical success.
Editing is crucial in such films, which rely heavily on intricate dramatic storylines, and the connection of Hafez’s name with these works is one of the most important factors in their success.
One example of these movies is AL AREF: AWDAT YOUNIS, in which he succeeded in providing a different experience of action and suspense, managing to maintain the film’s flow despite its multilayered events that span six nations across ten years.
Hafez also edited El-Bagoury’s HEPTA: THE LAST LECTURE — the highest-grossing romantic film in the history of Egyptian cinema with revenues exceeding EGP 27m — which won Hafez two awards. He then worked with El-Bagoury again on AMAR 14.
In terms of TV dramas, He worked with director Mohamed Shaker Khodeir and screenwriter Tamer Habib in the TV series TAREEQY (My Path) (2015), GRAND HOTEL (2016), LA TOTTFE’ AL SHAMS (2017), and FI KOL ESBO’ YOM GOMA’A (Every Week Has A Friday) in 2017.
He also worked with director Amr Salama in his TV series TAYEA (2018) and Netflix’s first-ever original Egyptian series PARANORMAL (2020), which is a thriller drama based on the best-selling Arabic horror books by the late author Ahmed Khaled Tawfik.
Additionally, his musical play COCO CHANEL has been released and it is currently available on Shahid. The play marked the phenomenal performer Sherihan’s comeback to the theater after a long hiatus.
Hafez also took part in the editing work of the historic global sensation that was The Pharaoh’s Golden Parade.
Furthermore, he led an editing principles class as part of the 2023 Xposure International Photography Festival, which was held at the Sharjah Expo Center in the UAE. Before that, in 2022, he joined a panel titled ‘Editing of International Works’ as part of the EditFest Global Festival organized by the ACE.
Hafez’s latest notch on his belt is Amjad Al-Rasheed’s four-time award-winning film project INSHALLAH A BOY, which was the first-ever Jordanian film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Gan Foundation and Rail D’Or awards. He also attended the MENA 360 panel that was held on the sidelines of the festival. The panel was a collaboration between the festival, the Saudi production city of NEOM, and the Arab Cinema Center and brought together several high-profile personalities from the global and North African film industries.
Hafez’s most recent work includes the Ramadan 2023 drama series TAHAT EL WESAYA (Under Guardianship), starring Mona Zaki and Ahmed Khaled Saleh, for which he received the Best Editing Award at the second Cairo Drama Festival.
His recent work includes Omar Helal’s VOY VOY VOY, starring Mohamed Farrag and Nelly Karim, which was chosen by a majority vote of Egypt’s Film Selection Committee to represent the country at the Oscars. The film was released in theaters across Egypt and the Arab World to immediate widespread acclaim and media attention, with audiences and critics taking to their social media platforms to discuss the instantly trending film.
He also edited Hadi El-Bagoury’s mini-series SAFAH EL GIZA — which is now available for streaming on Shahid — and Amr Salama’s 60 EGYPTIAN POUNDS, which is set to hold its world premiere at the sixth edition of the El Gouna Film Festival. He is currently working on MBC’s highly-anticipated musical SUKKAR and Salama’s upcoming film SHAMAREEKH.
Awards
● BlueElephant:DarkWhispers(2019):BestEditingAwardfromThe Egyptian Association for Writers & Cinema Critics in 2020
● BlueElephant:DarkWhispers(2019):BestEditingAwardattheAnnual Film Society Festival For Egyptian Cinema
● DiamondDust(2018):BestEditingAwardattheArabianCinemaAwards (ACA)
● TheOriginals(2017):BestEditingAwardattheArabianCinemaAwards, Alexandria International Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries, Egyptian National Film Festival, and Egyptian Catholic Center Cinema Festival
● TheGuest:Aleppo-Istanbul(2017):BestEditingAwardatthe International Bosphorus Film Festival in Turkey
● Clash(2016):BestEditingAwardattheCarthageFilmFestival,CairoFilm Society Festival, and Egyptian National Film Festival
● Hepta:TheLastLecture(2016):BestEditingAwardattheArabian Cinema Awards and Egyptian Catholic Center Cinema Festival
● Amar14(2022):Amar14CairoFilmSociety:BesteditingawardatCairo Film Society and Best Editing at the Egyptian Catholic Film Festival
● TahtElWesaya(2023):BestEditingAwardatthesecondeditionofthe Cairo Drama Festival
