Director: Tarik Saleh
Starring: Tawfeek Barhom, Fares Fares, Mohammad Bakri, Makram Khoury and Mehdi Dehbi
Distributor: Rialto Distribution
Runtime: 121 mins. Reviewed in May 2023
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan

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Rating notes: Mature themes and violence

The film is a dramatic story about the struggle for power and influence between the religious and the political elite of Egypt. Their interaction seriously affects the son of a fisherman, who gains a scholarship to study at Cairo’s most eminent Muslim University.

This subtitled political thriller from Sweden and Finland was awarded the Best Screenplay, and the Francois Chalais Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. Both awards were received by the film’s Swedish director, Tarik Saleh. The Francois Chalais Prize is awarded to a film that dedicates itself to the values of life affirmation, and to the values of journalism. The film was Sweden’s entry into the 2022 Academy Awards for Best International Film. The director’s father was Egyptian, and the film takes particular aim at what happens in Cairo. It is classified in Australia under the title, Boy From Heaven, has Arabic dialogue, and is subtitled in English.

The film tells of the life of Adam (Barhom), the son of a fisherman, who was raised in a remote Egyptian province. Adam receives the news that he has won a scholarship to Al-Azhar University (the preeminent institution of learning in Sunni Islam) to study Islamic thinking. Soon after Adam’s arrival at the university in Cairo, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar dies. His position is regarded as the most powerful position in Sunni Islam. Adam, a devout religious student, is caught in the vicious power struggle to replace the Grand Imam.

Colonel Ibrahim (Fares) is an intelligence officer, and he is ordered by his military superiors to take control of the election of the Grand Imam. He forces Adam to act as an informant to help him recruit a suitable person. One of the candidates for the position of Grand Imam is a cleric being groomed by the Muslim Brotherhood, a known terrorist organisation. Adam soon recognises that he has become a pawn in a fierce political struggle, and he is desperate to survive. Col Ibrahim knows the brutal tactics of the military, and the frightening activities that it will condone in order to stay in power, and he and Adam become the focal characters in the dramatic events that unfold. As Muslims await their new leader, the film brilliantly explores power politics in organised religion, where personal ambition can have far-reaching, and fatal consequences. The film demonstrates the tensions that can erupt when religion and politics combine, and the deadly battles that can occur as a consequence.

It provides an engrossing and totally absorbing exploration of the deceit and hypocrisy that often characterise power-hungry institutions and positions of significant authority. The film is intended to ‘warn’, and is pertinent to any culture, especially when corruption rears its ugly head.

The quality of acting by Barhom and Fares, as the film’s main characters, gives the movie impressive authenticity, and its cinematography is outstanding. The film converges on the damaging influence of leadership when it is allowed to get out of control, and Saleh intelligently and sensitively explores Islamic culture and its deep effect on Muslim life. The movie powerfully addresses spying and scandal, murder, torture, religious and political mayhem, and corruption in both church and state. The film itself is a fictional movie. It is not an attack on Islamic faith, but targets the factionalism within faith and politics that can divide people when different beliefs are savagely brought into play. Its sophisticated plot and script are germane to the political and religious tensions the film brilliantly evokes. The movie is full of betrayal, surprise, counter-expectational behaviour and intrigue, and offers an intense and compelling portrait of corruption in play.

Clashes of religion and politics establish a story that is dramatically arresting. The film offers a thought-provoking, intriguing dissection of State and Church power that communicates a warning for any culture. Cairo Conspiracy is a compelling ‘must-see’ political thriller.