Throughout his illustrious journey on the global stage, Mostafa El Kashef, a renowned cinematographer and producer, has lent his creative prowess to over a dozen cinematic works that have garnered international acclaim.

His most notable achievement to date is The Village Next to Paradise, the first-ever Somali feature film to be selected at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section. The film received a standing ovation at its packed premiere and was widely praised by international critics for its poetic and visually arresting cinematography. El Kashef’s work on the film earned him the Best Cinematography Award at the 35th Carthage Film Festival, Best Kamera at the Österreichischer Filmpreis 2025, and Best Cinematography at the Festival of Austrian Film – Diagonale. He was also nominated for Best Cinematography at the Austrian Film Academy Awards 2025. In recognition of his growing international stature, El Kashef was recently inducted as a member of the Österreichische Filmakademie, the Austrian Film Academy—an honor that further cemented his standing as one of the most influential cinematographers of his generation.

Earlier in his career, El Kashef made a powerful debut with 19B, which earned him the Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 2022 Cairo International Film Festival and the Golden Jubilee Award at the 50th Cairo Film Society Festival.

El Kashef first emerged as a DOP on the British-Greek production Moderation by Anja Kirschner. The film, shot in Greece, Italy, and Egypt, premiered at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, with El Kashef’s work bringing the Egyptian sequences to vivid life.

He quickly built momentum with a series of acclaimed short films that screened on the global festival circuit. These include Jaylan Auf’s My Festival, which was selected at the inaugural El Gouna Film Festival, and Sharine Atef’s Jebel Banat, which premiered at Tribeca and won the Student Visionary Award in 2019.

His collaboration with director Yousuf Nouman on This Is My Night earned him the Best Cinematography Award at Cinemaz Brasil and the Gold FIFOG at the International Festival of Oriental Film in Geneva.

A key turning point came in 2021, when El Kashef shot three short films that all premiered at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival: Cai – Ber by Ahmed Abdelsalam, Khadija by Morad Mostafa, and What We Don’t Know About Maryam. All three had successful festival runs, with Cai – Ber winning the Gouna Star for Best Arab Short Film and Maryam earning El Kashef the Best Cinematography Award at the Galichnik Film Festival and a Jury Prize in Barcelona.

El Kashef deepened his creative collaboration with Mostafa in I Promise You Paradise, where he served as both DOP and co-producer. The film world premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week and won both the Rail d'Or and Valbonne Audience Award. It went on to win Best Film at Melbourne and earned El Kashef ten cinematography awards from festivals across the globe, including in Romania, Australia, Georgia, Spain, Burkina Faso, Scotland, Italy, Japan, and India.

In 2024, he shot Jawaher Alamri’s The Last Dismissal, which premiered at Hollywood ShortsFest, followed by Joseph Adel’s Enough Water to Drown and Rasha Shahin’s Nahar Aber, both of which screened at the Cairo International Film Festival. His visually poetic collaboration with Kosovar director Leart Rama, Life After a Lifetime and Endless Rebirths, wrapped later that year.

He also lensed Morad Mostafa’s debut feature Aisha Can’t Fly Away, a tense African migrant drama and the first Egyptian project to win the Jury Prize for Best Film in Post-Production at the Venice Film Festival’s Final Cut section. The film is set to screen in Un Certain Regard at Cannes—the first Egyptian film to do so in nine years. Both I Promise You Paradiseand Enough Water to Drown were produced by El Kashef’s own company, Qaa’23, which he founded to support distinctive and socially resonant works.

Beyond film, El Kashef has built a diverse commercial portfolio. His ad Structures was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick and featured in Directors’ Library. He’s directed photography for campaigns with Vodafone (She Talks featuring Mohamed Salah), Cadbury, Swvl, Talabat, City Club, and Spotify.

In the music scene, he’s shot music videos for top Egyptian stars, including Ahmed Helmy’s El Haraka Dee and Aenaba’s viral hit El Melouk, showcasing his versatility across storytelling formats.

Born in Cyprus in 1995, El Kashef studied cinematography at EICAR (The International Film and Television School) in Paris before earning his bachelor’s degree from the Higher Institute of Cinema in Cairo. He is deeply influenced by his late father, the esteemed Egyptian director and screenwriter Redwan El Kashef, whose legacy helped shape his visual language from an early age.

While still a student, he trained under Egypt’s leading cinematographers such as Nancy Abdel Fattah and Abdelsalam Moussa, working as an assistant on New Year’s Eve, Cactus Flower, and TV dramas including Afrah Al Qoba, Wahet El Ghoroub, and Embratoreyet Meen.

In 2023, El Kashef was invited as a speaker at the Arab Cinema Center’s marquee Cannes event Talent Hotbed: How Arab Artists and Artisans are Conquering the Entertainment World. He was featured on the panel The Arab New Wave: The Artists and Artisans, spotlighting the next generation of Arab creatives breaking into global cinema.

Today, Mostafa El Kashef stands as one of the most dynamic and boundary-pushing cinematographers of his generation, a singular talent whose poetic realism and powerful imagery continue to redefine the visual language of contemporary Arab cinema.