Khaled Youssef

Biography

Early life

He was born in a village in Delta Egypt (Kafr Shokr) in 1964 to a father who served as mayor, in addition to being the secretary of Socialist Union at Kafr Shokr (the only political organization founded during the rule of President Gamal Abdelnasser. His father breaded him culturally upbringing with social and political dimensions because of the bias of the father to the ideas of Arab Socialism (Nasserism). His father's relationship with Khalid Mohi Eldin, the member of 23rd Revolution Leadership Council, and one of the main symbols of the leftism and socialism in the Arab world impacted him remarkably in his youth to make him familiar with the outlets of extensive knowledge and considerable experience added to him and contributed to formation of consciousness.

Career

Acting

Authoring

Directing

Personal life

Married from Saudi Formative Artist Shalimar Sharbatly.

Political views

He was one of the prominent leaders of the student movement in the eighties and elected to be the head of the Students' Union in his college (College of Engineering in Shubra), then (Zagazig University - Banha Branch). He participated the Egyptian Universities Students Union and activists student in the establishment of an effective student movement confronted against the social and political practices of Mubarak regime. He led many demonstrations and student sit-ins that led to the issuance of a decision of detaining him several times. After his graduating in 1990, he joined the cinema and continued his role in opposition to the Mubarak regime among the national forces and movements, as well as political parties, which played an important role in the biasness to the national issues, such as the effective solidarity with solidarity with Palestinian people in its response to the continuous Israeli aggression or unjust US siege on the Iraqi people. When the Egyptian political system started to follow the policies that enriched the wealthy and impoverished the poor and wasted freedoms, he was in the forefront with other national forces in coping that. He was protected from the oppression of the regime because of being an artist as arresting him will be an international scandal of the regime. When he began his film career making movies bearing his signature wholly biased for the poor and the marginalized scandalous to their suffering in a manner that reflect the dishonoring of freedoms and human dignity. These movies revived the spirit of rebellion and revolution in the hearts of the Egyptians and even foresaw and predicted the revolution that occurred after more than three years in all scenes, as it was difficult to differentiate between what made by movies before and what made by Egyptians aft in 25 January Revolution. When the spark of 25 January let, he was already at the forefront of the ranks of the demonstrators and one of the most insistent that the revolution must prevail and when some people exploited the absence of the police during these events, and tried to rob the Egyptian Museum, he moved in minutes calling the Egyptian people via the internet to hurry up to the museum to protect it. This has impact in the hearts of Egyptians who flocked by the thousands and were able to protect the museum from looting, which would affect the most important monuments in human civilization and remained in the field with millions of Egyptians till Mubarak was ousted. He kept sticking to the achievement of the objectives of the revolution.

Controversy

In an interview with Egyptian ON TV channel which was broadcast on August 10, 2015, Yousuf blamed Jews for the failure of Egyptian films at the Cannes film festival. While acknowledging that he is not a religious scholar, Yousuf claimed (as translated by MEMRI) that "the Jews would join Islam in its early days ... and two days later, they would leave it, saying: it's not for us. This way, they undermine the faith of the believers." Yousuf claimed that Jews still engage in this behavior against Muslims today in fields such as cinema, explaining that "When we would go to the Cannes Festival, they would try to make the Egyptian film fail. They tried to make the press give it bad reviews. So they would buy up all the tickets to the movie theater. That way, you would get the impression that the place was packed...By the time a third of the film was over, the theater would be empty. What would the press say? The film was a disaster and everybody left in the middle. The same thing happened at the advent of Islam."