From Tarik Saleh, the director of the award-winning The Nile Hilton Incident, comes a bold, nuanced thriller set in a complex world Westerners rarely see. It centers on gifted student Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), a naive fisherman’s son from a small village, who is offered a scholarship to study at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the power epicenter of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest-ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, suddenly dies and Adam finds himself a reluctant pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elites. As Adam’s enigmatic Security Services contact Colonel Ibrahim, Fares Fares plays brilliantly, never revealing the real motives of his actions. From his vantage point as a Swedish filmmaker, writer/director Saleh has more freedom than Egyptian artists to portray disparate facets of the country. A treat for the eyes, the fabulous-looking film was shot in Turkey as Saleh has been banned from his father’s country since 2015. Winner, Best Screenplay, Cannes Film Festival –Alissa Simon
Director Biography
Tarik Saleh was born in Stockholm in 1972 and is a renowned producer, animator, publisher, journalist and film director. His features include Gitmo (2005), Metropia (2009), Tommy (2014), The Nile Hilton Incident (2017), The Contractor (2022) and Cairo Conspiracy (2022) which was nominated for the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
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