Cairo-set Cannes thriller takes aim at Egypt's president
In his explosive political thriller "Eagles of the Republic", which premiered in Cannes on Monday, the Swedish-Egyptian filmmaker used real footage of President Abdelfattah al-Sisi and even found a lookalike to briefly play him.
"I don't have a choice because he's a constant. He will sit there until he dies," the Sweden-based director told AFP ahead of the screening in the Cannes Festival's main competition.
His third Cairo-set feature -- after 2017 "The Nile Hilton Incident" and "Cairo Conspiracy" which won best screenplay at Cannes in 2022 -- includes a hair-raising twist that Saleh said surprised even him when he wrote it.
Shot in Turkey with largely non-Egyptian actors, the film starts off following the fictional George Fahmy, Egypt's most celebrated actor, who is pressured into starring in a propaganda film about the country's leader.
Fahmy -- played by Swedish-Lebanese actor Fares Fares -- looks nothing like the general turned president, and is much taller than him, but that does not seem to be a problem.
The Egyptian military has for decades held a sizeable stake of the economy, and after Sisi seized power it "took over the film industry within a year", Saleh said.
He said he was inspired to write his film after a television series called "The Choice" came out in Egypt, in which actor Yasser Galal plays Sisi as he rises to power.
"Galal, who's this tall, very handsome actor, plays him. And when I saw that TV series, I was like, this is absurd. I mean, El-Sisi is 1.66" metres (5ft 4ins) tall, Saleh said.
The Egyptian leader was portrayed as "very noble in every interaction", and the Islamist president he toppled in 2013, Mohamed Morsi, was depicted as "cross-eyed", he added.
- Sisi 'under pressure' -
Saleh said he asked himself what he would have done if he lived in Egypt and the authorities asked him to direct such a story.
The result is "Eagles of the Republic", in which a filmmaker is also forced against his will to direct the propaganda film.
Egypt has been ruled by a president hailing from the military since 1952 -- with the exception of Morsi, who was elected after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
Since the worst-ever Gaza war broke out after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Egypt under Sisi has walked a diplomatic tightrope.
It has condemned Israel and rejected US President Donald Trump's proposal to take over Gaza and push its more than two million inhabitants into neighbouring Egypt and Jordan.
But it has also mediated in truce talks and kept diplomatic relations with Israel.
Sisi is "under pressure because of the conflict", said Saleh.
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