Egyptian author Nadia Kamel was born in 1961 in Cairo, where she works as a filmmaker, writer, and producer. The daughter of journalist parents with a long history of political activism, Kamel grew up in a house steeped in progressive politics and a passion for the arts and popular culture.
Kamel first began to work on her own projects in 2000, eventually concluding that to address the daring, often taboo topics that she hoped to engage with in her projects, she would need to take the risk of producing her own low-budget films. She is known for her first film, the prize-winning Salata Baladi [An Egyptian Salad], and Green Mirage, a documentary she directed and produced in Tunisia. Her award-winning documentary novel Al Mawlouda [Born], published in 2018, became a bestseller. Kamel is currently working on a hybrid genre film about Egyptian youth of the early eighties.