Freshman Filmmaker Mahmood Khawaga Overcomes the Odds
By: Mostafa El Meteni
@MossMeteni
Photo Courtesy of Mahmood Khawaga
Author, screenwriter and director, Mahmood Khawaga struggled for many years as an artist before he was able to call himself successful. All the ups and downs he experienced brought him to where he is today — a freshman studying film at AUC, who is also an award winning director and best-selling writer.
When he was twelve years old, Khawaga started making movie review videos on YouTube, which he was later cyberbullied for over his accent and how he spoke. His brother saw his disappointment when his videos didn’t succeed and gave him a novel to read and trigger his inspiration.
The novel was Ahmed Mourad’s The Blue Elephant, which inspired Khawaga to write over 30 short stories at the age of 13. He later published a novel called “Malfunction”.
When Khawaga started marketing for his work, people took it to Facebook and started attacking him, saying that he was just a child with no talent.
“It was the loneliest I’ve ever been. I also felt like I had no talent whatsoever,” Khawaga told The Caravan.
Despite the circumstances, Khawaga found motivation in a young boy who approached him at the Cairo International Book Fair, where he was promoting his novel.
“You’re my idol and I wish to be like you,” said the boy to Khawaga.
These simple words motivated him to write his next novel, And We Saw him as The Devil, which later on became a huge success.
The success of this novel reminded Khawaga of his former dream; directing. He had given up on this dream when his YouTube channel failed. However, he decided to revive it by writing the script for his film, Good Day.
He then found people willing to help him work on his first short movie and more importantly, a producer showed interest in pushing Khawaga’s movie up. Being 16 at the time did not stop him from trying to make this movie a success, however he failed.
After the failure of his first movie, he immediately decided to channel all his pain and disappointment into the writing of his second short film, Yesterday.
“Each one of us keeps revisiting yesterday in fear of facing the future,” Khawaga said.
He worked hard on the movie, and even got several jobs to help finance it, but he still couldn’t afford an editor. He learned movie editing in six months, along with managing being in highschool, so that he could edit his film himself.
Yasmina Bakry, English and Comparative Literature alumna and friend of Khawaga’s, described him as a very humble and hardworking person.
“[Khawaga] published four novels and directed three movies, working so hard to produce something every year,” explained Bakry.
She added that his main goal is to win an Oscar for one of his works in the future.
After his graduation from high school, he wanted to enroll at Cairo’s Higher Cinema Institute, a member of the International Organisation For cinema colleges and institutes. Khawaga was warned that simply being talented wasn’t enough to get him in, he applied nonetheless and was later rejected. This took a toll on him, but he still kept his faith and went to Cairo University to study Mass Communication.
Khawaga began to work on himself in order to grow and become more open to opportunities. He met people who encouraged him to give screenwriting workshops. Through the workshops he gave, he made new friends.
Finding so many people who believed in him for who he is without asking for anything in return changed his perspective on life.
His movie Yesterday later became a success, even though it was just a student project. During his first year at Cairo University, he got a call saying that it had won best short movie and best actress in 2019 Cinema For All Festival and he was ranked one of top 250 youth writers four years ago.
When he went to the award ceremony, he found the theatre full of friends he had made at university who had come to support his success. This success led to AUC giving him a scholarship so he could follow his dream of studying Film.
