July 11, 2024 7:30 pm | Egypt | 2022 | 120m | Cert 12A | Thriller
The gripping and critically acclaimed new thriller from Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident, The Contractor), follows Adam, a young man who is offered the ultimate privilege: to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Shortly after his arrival in the city, the university’s highest-ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, suddenly dies and Adam becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elite. As he struggles to balance a range of competing interests that favour different leaders, he soon finds that he must fight for his very survival as the succession intensifies.
… There’s an intriguing mix of scorn and paranoia here, together with a yearning for individual figures of decency halfway down the food chain – it reminded me of John le Carré.
Peter Bradshaw, ‘The Guardian’