Skip to main content
Tag

Egypt

Cairo Conspiracy [Egypt]

CAIRO CONSPIRACY [Egypt], Thursday 5 October, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 Autumn 2023

Online booking is appreciated and we cover the cost of your booking fee. Click here to buy your ticket for Cairo Conspiracy.

A gripping political thriller. A fisherman’s son wins a scholarship to a prestigious Islamic university only to be recruited as a government informant.

This critically acclaimed new film by Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident, The Contractor) follows Adam who is offered the ultimate privilege: to study at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the epicentre of Sunni Islam power. Soon 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. – The Guardian

A measured but unsparing portrait of corruption perpetrated by people who, across the board, are utterly confident of their own rectitude. – New York Times

CAIRO CONSPIRACY

Egypt, 2022 I Language: Arabic I 126 minutes I Cert: Unrated

Director: Tarik Saleh

Cast: Tawfeek Barhom, Fares Fares, Mohammad Bakri

Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.

A short film may be shown before the feature.

BOOKING

Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession

Cork Cine Club is absorbing the cost of online booking fees.

Book online: https://bit.ly/CairoConspiracy-5thOct

Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

CLASH [EGYPT], THU 16 NOVEMBER, 8PM

By archive, Season 17 films

Mohamed Diab brings claustrophobic intimacy to a historic moment in this stunning thriller, set inside a police vehicle during Egypt’s 2013 street protests.

“The Egyptian revolution that dislodged Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and its chaotic aftermath continues to give us some fascinating films. Here is the latest, a rather amazing New Wave-style drama that combines claustrophobic intimacy with some logistically epic scene-setting.

The year is 2013, the army has just unseated Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, and pro-army and pro-MB factions clash on the streets. A reporter and photographer are arrested and thrown into the back of a police van, which is the sole camera setting; soon, other demonstrators from both sides are chucked in – along with, in one particularly chaotic scene, a lenient cop. They are crowded in there for hours in the boiling heat with no water and a plastic bottle to pee in. Through the grille-meshed window they get glimpses of the turmoil on the city streets.

At first, it looks like a no-budget movie with about a dozen people shot in a single location, but the director, Mohamed Diab, stages some spectacular riot scenes outside, which are all the more staggering for intruding on this enclosed space so unexpectedly.

The movie stunningly replicates that sense of inside and outside that must be felt by witnesses to any historic moment: the private debate, the enclosed conflict, and the theatre of confrontation unfolding beyond. What a dynamic piece of cinema.” – Peter Bradshaw The Guardian

‘Bravura film-making with a kick-in-the-gut message about chaos and cruelty.’Variety

‘Director Mohamed Diab won’t let us pick sides in this prize-winning drama which is thick with tension.’ – ★★★★ The Evening Standard

Click here to read an interview with the director.

ESHTEBAK | Egypt, 2017 | Language: Arabic | 97 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Director:   Mohamed Diab

Cast: Nelly Karim, Hani Adel, El Sebaii Mohamed

Director Gavin FitzGerald will attend on the night, and introduce his short Irish documentary, The Truth About Irish Hip Hop, about the rise of hip hop in Ireland and the changing attitudes towards the once foreign art form.  His 19 minute short film will be shown before the feature.