To an outsider, Egypt looks like a dynamic country reinventing itself. Under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, construction is booming, with dams, bridges, roads, and tourism mega-projects proliferating in the desert and along the Mediterranean coast.

But behind the flashy projects, Egypt is a country on the brink of collapse. In the decade since Sisi took power in a coup, poverty has exploded, and the social safety net has been dismantled in favor of providing seemingly unlimited funding to the military, which the regime depends on for its survival.

Egypt is now the third most indebted country in the world, its economy largely dependent on income from the Suez Canal and tourism. And those mega-projects? They are propped up by support from the Gulf states, the IMF and the European Union — and ultimately will be sold off to foreign investors.

In EL-SISI: EGYPT'S NEW PHARAOH, directors Claire Billet and Nadia Blétry speak with regular Egyptians struggling to make ends meet, political dissidents, and social and economic experts, revealing a country where poverty abounds, criticism is not tolerated, and the military has infiltrated almost every sector of the economy. Much of the film was shot clandestinely, since it’s illegal in Egypt to film scenes of poverty, the destruction of heritage or to criticize the army’s increasing dominance.

Is the land of the pyramids modernizing — or do Egypt’s changes represent just another pyramid scheme?