Honey Bees Films is an independent creative production house founded in 2020 and led by a group of young film professionals. The company develops, produces, and distributes fiction, documentary, and cross-disciplinary projects that explore compelling human stories with artistic ambition and social relevance.
Since its foundation, Honey Bees Films has built a diverse portfolio of acclaimed productions. Its projects have received 10 international awards and have been officially selected for dozens of international film festivals, co-production markets, and development programs.
Its productions include 2:30, a short comedy screened at more than 12 international film festivals; Stings, a one-season comedy web series addressing contemporary social issues in Egypt; Fekry’s Thoughts, an 8 award-winning short documentary selected by more than 40 international festivals; and Amina’s Song, an Egypt–Russia–Latvia co-production that won the TATNEFT Award at Film7Days in Russia and was selected for more than 25 international film festivals.
The company’s development slate includes Seven and a Half, a short fiction film in pre-production; A Lady Called Sayeda, a feature film in development, selected for prestigious development workshops, including Durban FilmMart and PAS Jumpstart; and The Fence, a feature film that received the Second Pitch Award at Les Ateliers de Tétouan in Morocco.
Beyond film production, Honey Bees Films actively develops artistic collaborations across disciplines. The company is a development and production partner of Chez soi, created in collaboration with Mulberry Tree and presented at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, in partnership with the Institut français and other cultural organizations in France.
Honey Bees Films is also a partner with TramAlwan on Resilience Cities Stories, a participatory artistic initiative that creates a collaborative space to document memory, transformation, resistance, adaptation, and resilience in the face of environmental and social change, working with Sudanese refugees living in Cairo.
Driven by a commitment to artistic excellence, meaningful collaboration, and socially engaged storytelling, Honey Bees Films continues to build international partnerships while developing films and creative projects that connect local realities with global audiences.
Meet the founder
Essam Hayder is an Egyptian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, photographer, and creative director based between Egypt and France. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Film Directing (Master 2 Réalisation) at ENSAV Toulouse, one of France’s leading national film schools. His work moves between documentary, fiction, and experimental cinema, exploring questions of identity, memory, politics, displacement, social representation, and the relationship between individuals and the societies they inhabit. Through his films, he seeks to create spaces where overlooked voices, everyday experiences, and human encounters become the starting point of cinematic storytelling.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Screenwriting from the Higher Institute of Cinema in Cairo and a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from Ain Shams University. He is also an alumnus of the DFM Business Lab and has participated in numerous international film labs, markets, and workshops, including ATELIERS DE TÉTOUAN, Durban FilmMart, PAS Jumpstart, Film Independent, Gabès Cinéma Fen, El Gouna Film Festival’s Development Program, the Luxor African Film Festival Filmmaking Workshop, and the Haile Gerima Filmmaking Workshop.
In 2020, Essam founded Honey Bees Films, an independent creative production company dedicated to developing and producing films that combine artistic ambition with social engagement. Alongside his filmmaking practice, he regularly designs and facilitates filmmaking, directing, and creative writing workshops for emerging filmmakers, students, and participants from diverse social and cultural backgrounds. Through Resilience Cities Stories, a participatory artistic initiative developed in partnership with TramAlwan, he has facilitated storytelling and creative writing workshops with Sudanese refugees in Cairo, exploring themes of memory, identity, displacement, resilience, and environmental and social change.
His artistic practice also extends beyond cinema into interdisciplinary performance. He directed Chez soi, a performance developed in collaboration with Mulberry Tree and presented at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, in partnership with the Institut français and several cultural organizations in France.
Alongside his artistic career, Essam has worked for more than six years as a creative director and producer, leading audiovisual productions, documentaries, and communication campaigns for more than fifty local, regional, and international organizations and brands.
His films have been screened at festivals across Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, receiving numerous international awards and recognitions. His documentary Fekry’s Thoughts (2025) has won multiple international awards and screened at more than 40 international film festivals. His short fiction film Amina’s Song (2025), an Egypt–Russia–Latvia co-production, received the TATNEFT Special Award at Film7Days in Russia and screened internationally. His experimental documentary Adieu, Omda… (2026) won the First Prize of the CROUS Bretagne Regional Competition and was selected for the French national finals.
Essam is currently developing his first feature documentary, Italie, and his first fiction feature, The Fence, winner of the Second Pitch Award at ATELIERS DE TÉTOUAN. Across all of his work, he approaches cinema as a space where different perspectives can meet, challenge dominant narratives, and evolve through observation, dialogue, and collective experience.
