Helmy Rafla
film director (1909-1978)
Helmy Rafla (May 15, 1909 – April 22, 1978; Arabic: حلمي رفلة) was an Egyptian film director, screenwriter, film producer, and make-up artist. He is considered to be one of the most prominent Egyptian filmmakers.
Biography
Helmy Rafla was born on 15 May 1909 in the Kingdom of Egypt.
Rafla did make-up for actress Umm Kulthum in many of her films, which allowed him travel to France to learn the art of make-up. After he returned to Cairo, businessman Talaat Harb asked Rafla to work as an assistant to some foreigners from Europe that were working at Studio Misr, a Cairo-based film studio established by Harb.
Rafla continued to work in Studio Misr, until 1936 when the Egyptian Ministry of Education announced they were dispatching Egyptians to France and England in order to learn more about the art of theatre and cinema, including cosmetology. This training was in preparation for the opening of the Egyptian National Theatre Troupe (now the National Theater of Egypt). He studied in France photography, set decoration, and film directing, and upon returning to Egypt he focused on working as a make-up art in the theater for five years. Around 1938, Rafla pivoted to working in make-up for cinema. He did make-up for more than 40 films.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11023553. VIAF identifies the subject as 46164470. The Library of Congress control number is n2005007228. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1978, 1936 and 1938.
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This entry incorporates text from “Helmy Rafla” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.