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Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tarik Saleh on His Cannes Thriller ‘Eagles of the Republic' Forming a ‘Cairo Trilogy:' ‘It's About Men Trying to Defeat a City that Cannot Be Defeated' (EXCLUSIVE)
For a filmmaker making gripping thrillers dealing with religion and oppressive politics, Tarik Saleh is surprisingly funny and joyful. The filmmaker, who became Sweden's most prominent street artists before turning into one of the country's biggest star filmmaker, returns to the Cannes Film Festival with 'Eagles of the Republic,' three years after winning best screenplay with 'Boy From Heaven.' Saleh hit the ground running with his feature debut, 'The Nile Hilton Incident' which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2017. His sophomore feature, 'Boy From Heaven,' was an arthouse hit that traveled around the world and was chosen by Sweden as its Oscar entry. With 'Eagles of the Republic,' he's delivering his most ambitious film to date, reuniting with Fares Fares who stars as an Egyptian megastar coerced by the Egyptian government into starring in a propagandist film as President Al-Sissi. As he gets closer to the inner circle of power, he finds himself embroiled in dangerous conspiracies. Saleh, who produced the film through his own vehicle, Paraton, alongside Swedish banner Unlimited Stories and France's Memento, said he was compelled to make yet another film set in Cairo because he grew up in Sweden as 'a child of immigrants,' and through his work, he's 'been constantly trying to reclaim (his) own version of what Egypt is to me.' More from Variety 'The History of Sound' Review: Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor Star in a Gay Period Romance That's Like 'Brokeback Mountain' on Sedatives Neon Acquires North American Rights to Kleber Mendonça Filho's 'The Secret Agent' 'Homebound' Review: A Moving Friendship Drama Set Against a Politically Fractured India Besides having Cairo as a backdrop, Saleh said the common thread between 'The Nile Hilton Incident,' 'Boy From Heaven' and 'Eagles of the Republic' is that they're about 'men trying to defeat a city that cannot be defeated.' While the movie is a fiction, he admitted that he was inspired by an Egyptian TV series that was made about Al- Sissi played by a handsome actor who looked nothing like him. Ultimately, Saleh says he doesn't want to be labeled as a political filmmaker. 'I'm not an activist but I'm really fascinated by people in power,' he said. Since he knows 'people that work within the presidency in Egypt,' he was able to give the script enough texture to make the thriller gritty enough and filled with dark humor that ring true. In an interview with Variety at Cannes, Saleh talked about the making of 'Eagles of the Republic' and his aspirations, as well as what he'll do next, this time in France. How much of 'Eagles of the Republic' is based on reality and the way the Egyptian government works? Of course, there is a real story that inspired this film. In Egypt, the army has 30% of the country's economy and when (Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, Egypt's President) got elected, he said 'Let's get into media and film, too.' So the government basically took over the whole film industry and the television. They bought all the private television stations. And since they are owned by the army, they decided to do a television series about the President's rise to power. What they did was to cast this tall, handsome actor called Yaser Galal to play al-Sissi who's a very short guy and bold. It was absurd. I was watching this TV series, and there was zero irony, and of course, my first thought was, 'What if I got the call and was told I had direct this. What if my friend Fares had to play it? What would we do?' We couldn't say no because then we were banned. I thought that was a funny premise. How important is it for you to make films that are relevant, politically speaking? I think a lot of times art can predict what's going to happen. I was very nervous about 'A Boy From Heaven' that I would predict something for just selfish reasons, because I thought that if I was predicting something like this happens, then my film would become something all of a sudden. I had that issue for the premiere of 'Boy From Heaven' when the so-called 'Quran burning crisis' happened in Sweden. All of a sudden, it was in the news and I had a film out. It's exactly like what happened with 'Conclave' this year. So you don't want your movies to be political? What is politics? Politics is the relationship between power and people. So when you say 'a political film,' it might mean that it has an agenda, that it wants to convince you of a political view or of a way of looking at the world. My films are about human beings that are under the pressure of power systems. I'm very interested in power dynamics, but more like a spectator. I'm not an activist but I'm really fascinated by people in power. I actually know people that work within the presidency in Egypt. That's where I get a lot of my information. Oh, that's why 'Eagles of the Republic' feels very well documented! Some things in the movie are almost quoted from what people are saying and how they are. I'm fascinated with the technicality of how power operates. If you take 'Boy From Heaven,' the character I identify most with is Ibrahim, the state security officer, it's not the student. And in 'Eagles of the Republic,' I identify with Dr. Mansour. Because he's the real director of that film that is being made in 'Eagles of the Republic.' In many ways, it's also a film about the film industry in Egypt and the work of actors, in this case the local superstar George El-Nabawi. Yes, and usually Fares always asks me very difficult questions before we shoot, but this time, it's me who had a question. I asked him, 'Will we ever care about an actor and this one in particular?' Because I was thinking of Amber Heard during her trial, when she cried and everyone was ridiculing her. People said, 'Oh, it's not real. She's acting, right?' Because we think that actors are not displaying their real emotion. But Fares reassured me. He said to me, 'No, Tarik, we will care about him. I promise you we will care about him.' Fares pulled it off. He really makes George an endearing character. Fares made George human. I wrote him in a cynical way. That scene about Viagra at the pharmacy is very funny. Listen, that story happened to me. But without me asking for it. It's almost like a trilogy of movies set in Egypt. What keeps you luring you back to Egypt to tell stories? There are two reasons. The first reason was when you grow up as a child of immigrants, you are told stories by your parents about the home country that are almost fairytales — which is a paradox, because you wonder, 'Why are we here then if everything was great?' My father told me about Egypt, and I had these very vivid images of it. Then when I was 10 years old, for the first time, Anouar el-Sadate had just died, we could go back to Egypt. It was a shock. Almost the trauma of meeting the reality from all these fairytales that my father had built up around what Egypt was. And since then, I went to study art in Alexandria, and I started a magazine in Cairo. I've been constantly trying to reclaim my own version of what Egypt is to me. So I have very personal relationship to this place. Why is Cairo such an interesting backdrop for your films? In Arabic, Cairo means the conqueror. It's a very noir place. Every major city has a personality. Cairo is a place where people have come from all over Egypt and all over the Arab world to fulfill a dream but the problem is that you will not make it. It will bring you down to your knees. Cairo is a city which will ridicule you. It will cheat on you. It will sell you papyrus that is not real, and you will get stomach ache, but it will blow your mind and it will conquer you. The Cairo trilogy is really about men trying to defeat a city that cannot be defeated. Why did you want to shoot 'Eagles of the Republic' in 65 mm? That was the scale I wanted. It feels like cinema in that way. Ever since I saw 'Parasite,' I was dreaming of shooting on 65 mm in the back of my head. Then I saw 'Joker,' and it was the same feeling. It's wonderful for the way it treats the faces, it creates these beautiful textures. I was very fortunate to have had really great producers on this film. They gave me everything I asked for. I was a bit nervous before Cannes. I thought, I better get into main competition with this film because I have no one to blame. You worked with the Oscar-winning French music composer Alexandre Desplat on this film. How was that? It was a love affair. Love at first sight. Did you know he has Greek ancestry? He grew up watching Egyptian films, so right away he knew all the references, everything. So the first time he saw the film, he called me and he said, 'It's a film about a man selling his soul piece by piece.' I said, 'Oh, please write that music.' When we went to Paris to record the music, I started writing that night my new script. How hopeful are you that 'Eagles of the Republic' will find a good U.S. distributor who will campaign for it? I'm hopeful. I think that America is going through a difficult time. It's strange for me because I worked in America a lot, as you know. I think that there is a nervousness about, especially films dealing with Middle East and Arabic and so on. But I think that the difference with this film is that it doesn't deal with religion in the same way as the last one, ' A Boy From Heaven,' which really made people nervous. I could tell that people didn't know how to speak about it. I remember doing interviews with American journalists who were almost yelling at me, ''What is true?' And I was like, 'It's a fictional film!' Your last two films found an audience in theaters, and this one is even more accessible. Do you care how many people go see it in cinemas? For me, the relationship with the audience is key. A lot of directors say, 'I don't care. I just make these films for me…' But that's because they've never had an audience. The expectation of the audience is something you play with. I had a shock with 'Boy From Heaven' because Alexandre Mallet-Guy (the co-producer and French distributor) had bought it out of Berlin, he flew me to Paris and he said to me, 'Tarik, you made a really good film. If this doesn't reach 300,000 admissions in France I have not done my job.' That stunned me to see a distributor who takes responsibility. In the end, 'Boy From Heaven' passed 500,000 tickets. The cinema culture in France is almost sanctuary. I think that France has a lot to teach both America and the rest of Europe about how to engage audience and how to make the audience feel like it's an event, because I believe that cinema can actually save us. People are very pessimistic about the future of cinema but I believe it's very, very bright. Because our phones and these social media platforms, we have no way of escaping ourselves, there is this constant narcissistic feedback, and our lives are very shattered. What cinema offers us is this act of empathy where we, for two hours, live someone else's life and forget our own life for two hours. You're one of the leading filmmakers in Sweden. Do you think one day you'll make a movie there? I'm very close friends with Ali Abbasi and we were joking about the fact that he was invited to Egypt with 'Holy Spider,' and I was invited to Iran with 'Boy From Heaven.' But it happened back in the days, when Billy Wilder and and Elia Kazan or even someone like Milos Forman left Europe to go to America to find a platform to do films and to be free. I think that's going to happen now. We can only make those in Europe. We are European filmmakers in that sense that, as Billy Wilder was American filmmaker and he was talking about the horrors of what happened in Europe. More and more American filmmakers are actually now coming to Europe to make films. Yes, we've already seen the migration start to come here from the U.S.. In Europe, too, we have to start to protect our freedom, our artistic freedom of expression. We're also threatened by autocrats and fascists and people that wants to limit this. And now I sound like a political activist and a political filmmaker. You mentioned earlier you started writing your next film in France? There is a big chance I do something in France. A love story, then? There is always a love story somewhere. But I can say that it's still going to be a political thriller because I think that France has a lot of political thriller elements to talk about. To start with, it's a nuclear power. Best of Variety All the Godzilla Movies Ranked Final Oscar Predictions: International Feature – United Kingdom to Win Its First Statuette With 'The Zone of Interest' 'Game of Thrones' Filming Locations in Northern Ireland to Open as Tourist Attractions
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Eagles of the Republic' Review: Movies Collide With Political Might in Tarik Saleh's Dark and Clever Conspiracy Thriller
Once again navigating a labyrinth of corruption and bad behavior inside contemporary Egypt, writer-director Tarik Saleh delivers another solid, thought-provoking thriller with Eagles of the Republic. Both entertaining and insightful, not to mention darkly funny in its first half, the Swedish-Egyptian filmmaker follows up The Nile Hilton Incident and Cairo Conspiracy with a crime-ridden drama about a famous actor who's forced to play President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in a biopic, then pays a high price for his success. Reteaming with star Fares Fares, who headlined the above-mentioned films, Saleh completes what could be considered his Cairo trilogy, with each movie tackling a hot-button social or political issue through well-crafted genre storytelling. If Nile Hilton focused on drugs and police malfeasance and Conspiracy took on fraud in the world of Muslim clerical schools, Eagles highlights the dirty dealings between the government and the film industry, showing how popular artists are coopted — or rather coerced — into making works of propaganda in a country leaving them few other options. More from The Hollywood Reporter Jafar Panahi: The World's Most Acclaimed Dissident Filmmaker 'Splitsville' Review: Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona in a Winning Indie Comedy That Puts Two Divorcing Couples Through the Wringer Julia Ducournau Stuns Cannes With 'Alpha' The opening reels, which both mock and celebrate the life of fictional Egyptian movie star George Fahmy (Fares), are filled with more comedy than suspense. But as Saleh's script advances, and the actor sees the walls closing in around him on all sides, the tone grows more desperate and the film turns into a straight-out thriller. At a time when movies seem divided between commercial fare and works made strictly for the arthouse, Saleh occupies an intriguing middle ground here, directing a crime story that keeps us engaged while saying plenty about the world we live in — or at least about Egypt right now. Fahmy, who's known throughout the land as the 'Pharoah of the Screen,' has headlined countless blockbusters in his country's longstanding film industry, embodying the kind of success most Egyptians could only dream of. But we immediately see that his life is not all it's cracked up to be: His marriage has fallen apart and his teenage son, Ramy (Suhaib Nashwan), seems to resent him for being a negligent dad. His much younger mistress, Donya (Lyna Khoudri from Papicha), seems to resent him as well, and it doesn't help that Fahmy has to go out in disguise to a pharmacy in order to buy Viagra. But these issues are minor compared to what happens when Dr. Mansour Rula (Amr Waked), an official working directly for El-Sisi's office, corners Fahmy into playing the current president in a new movie celebrating the reigning leader's military exploits before his election in 2014. Much fun is initially made of the fact that Fahmy and El-Sisi look nothing alike — 'He's been bald since kindergarten!' the star clamors — but the reality is that the actor has little choice in the matter, especially when the life of his son is threatened. Fahmy soon ropes in a hit director to helm the project, but on the first day of shooting it's clear that none of them will have any say in a project overseen by Rula, who sits behind a monitor and comments on each scene with regards to how it portrays the president. Censorship rules over the industry and corruption over the rest of society. When Fahmy is not on set, he attends various galas and dinners in town, getting cozy with other powerful higher-ups, including the minister of defense (Tamim Heikal). Unfortunately, the actor also gets cozy with the minister's outspoken girlfriend (Cherien Dabis), putting himself at even more risk when the two begin having an affair. Saleh juggles these dual narrative strands — the troubled movie shoot and Fahmy's harried personal life — with relative ease, even if there are moments when the plot feels a tad convoluted. But everything comes together in a decidedly darker third act that brings the actor face-to-face with the actual president. Suddenly, reality takes over and what felt like a cheesy movie (the one being shot, that is) has dire consequences for all involved. It makes sense that Saleh doesn't live in Egypt, because it's hard to imagine anyone residing there who could make a film that so outwardly criticizes the current regime, whether it's the countless corrupt officials or the methods of coercion used by a government that claims to be a democracy but feels more like a military dictatorship. The closing reels are especially grim in that sense, highlighted by a memorable scene, set in a helicopter, in which Fahmy witnesses just how ruthless El-Sisi's people can be. Fares — who, like the director, is half-Swedish (the other half is Lebanese) — embodies the movie star perfectly, channeling the actor's egomania but also his desire to live freely in a country that offers little freedom, even for people as rich and renowned as Fahmy. 'You played your role perfectly,' someone ironically tells him toward the end, as he realizes success means nothing when everyone is a puppet to power in one way or another. Eagles of the Republic — whose title sounds like one of George Fahmy `'s many box-office hits — offers a clever lesson in how truth can be scarier than fiction, especially in a place where movies serve as both popular entertainment and weapons for the men (they're all men) in charge. Like his previous films, including his underrated Chris Pine effort, The Contractor, Saleh once again proves himself capable of delivering a solid genre flick with a dark message beneath all the action. He may not live in Egypt, but he channels the country's thrills and terrors as if he were a star there himself. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Eagles Of The Republic' Review: The Terrific Fares Fares Stars In Tarik Saleh's Precision-Tooled Political Thriller
Swedish director Tarik Saleh would be a left-field but great pick for a Bond movie, and the third entry in his Cairo trilogy — following The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) and Boy from Heaven (2022) — is the proof. Like his previous films, it stars terrific Lebanese-Swedish actor Fares Fares (an actor so good they named him twice), in another precision-tooled political thriller that starts with a good deal more humor that seen previously in his works but rapidly ratchets up the tension for a shattering climax. Deftly and daringly blending fact and fiction, it shares DNA with István Szabó's 1981 Nazi-era drama Mephisto. Like Mephisto, it is about a self-seeking actor whose arrogance gets him into bad company. Fares plays George Fahmy, the biggest movie star in Egypt. They call him 'The Pharaoh of the Screen,' and that adoration has been the ruin of him. Having abandoned his wife and son, he lives with his girlfriend Donya (Lyna Khoudri), a beautiful aspiring actress young enough to be his daughter. George's career is mapped out in the opening credits, a sequence made up of lurid film posters (including, we later find out, for one called The First Egyptian in Space). Somehow, George has kept Donya under the radar, but there have been rumblings about his behavior for some time, as is about to become apparent. More from Deadline Cannes Film Festival 2025: Read All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Cannes Film Festival Photos Day 7: Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, A$AP Rock at 'Highest 2 Lowest' photocall, Dakota Johnson & More Breaking Baz @ Cannes: Nicole Kidman, "The Barefoot Queen Of Cannes", Wanted To Party On The Beach But Had To Fly Home For Her Kids' Exams Taking Donya on a date, George encounters a coterie of his peers, who try to involve him in the informal militia they have formed. 'We all have to protect our country,' says one. 'The enemy is everywhere.' George declines their offer but becomes concerned when his latest co-star, Rula Haddad (Cherien Dabis), comes to his house, claiming she is being forced into a TV interview where she will be pressured to dish dirt on him. Rula keeps mum, but their new film together already is in trouble with the country's hatchet-faced panel of censors, since it involves a scene in which an unmarried couple suggestively share their cigarettes. 'What's this disgrace?' says one. 'Everything you do is a sin.' His long-suffering manager Fawzy (Ahmed Kairy) spells it out for him ('George, they are after you'), and while driving out late at night the actor is pulled over by a soldier who shows him a picture of his son and warns of the high incidence of traffic 'accidents' that happen at the American university where he is studying. Shaken, George goes straight to his ex-wife's house, where the boy is, thankfully, unscathed. 'Whose wife or daughter did you sleep with this time?' she sneers. 'Aren't you too old for that?' RELATED: Full List Of Cannes Palme d'Or Winners Through The Years: Photo Gallery Feeling the heat, George accepts an offer to take the lead in a largely fictional and completely hagiographic biopic of (current) Egyptian President Al-Sisi. George resists at first, but it soon becomes clear that dark forces are at play, none darker than the sinister Dr. Mansour (Amr Waked), a shady government official supervising the film and effectively serving as producer. George brings in a friend to direct, asking him if he can 'turn this shit into something decent.' George Fahmy doesn't make bad films, says George, but he does make bad choices, and this one could end up being the death of him. Saleh, and Fares, have a lot of fun with the character of George, notably in a very funny scene where the aging lothario stops off at a pharmacy to buy Viagra. The pharmacist recognizes him ('I download all your movies!') and demands a selfie, adding that Cialis is a better alternative ('It will make you harder than the Sphinx!'). After this, however, Eagles of the Republic becomes exponentially darker, as George finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the president's pocket, to the point that he even agrees to make a speech at an important military parade to commemorate the Yom Kippur War. As in the previous films in the trilogy, there is a certain sense of inevitability to the events that follow, spiraling out of control in ways that George cannot fight, certainly not after he blithely embarks on a dangerous affair with a senior politician's wife — unaware that Dr. Mansour has him under close surveillance and that he is being manipulated by rival factions within the military. Unwittingly, George pulls everyone and everything down with him, finally facing the consequence of his actions in a harrowing helicopter ride. Although it is of a kind with the other Cairo movies, Eagles of the Republic arguably is the strongest, possibly because there's so much rich real-world source material to draw on. It's also a brilliantly executed satire on the film industry, and a haunting reminder of what happens when you lie down with dogs. Title: Eagles of the RepublicFestival: Cannes (Competition)Sales: Playtime GroupDirector-screenwriter: Tarik SalehCast: Fares Fares, Lyna Khoudri, Zineb, Amr Waked, Cherien Dabis, Ahmed KairyRunning time: 2 hr 9 min Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds All The 'Mission: Impossible' Movies In Order - See Tom Cruise's 30-Year Journey As Ethan Hunt Denzel Washington's Career In Pictures: From 'Carbon Copy' To 'The Equalizer 3'
Time Out
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Eagles of the Republic
Imagine George Clooney being coerced into playing Donald Trump in a straight-faced hagiography – perhaps directed by one of White House's new Special Ambassadors – and you've got the predicament faced by the Egyptian movie star at the heart of Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh's new thriller. George Fahmy (Fares Fares), the so-called 'Pharaoh of the Screen', is a much-loved fiftysomething actor carving out a comfortable, westernised living on Cairo's soundstages and in its members' bars, parroting Samuel Beckett quotes to the much younger girlfriend (Lyna Khoudri) who looks to him for a career leg-up. But under the repressive rule of real-life president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, that feckless lifestyle leaves him wide open to blackmail. It's made clear that if he wants to continue having a career and keep his student son out of jail, he'll have to don el-Sisi's old military uniform for a propaganda film called The Will of the People. He's already a cliché, they want to make him a tool too. 'Nothing is for free,' he's told. Including his freedom. Fares, star of the two previous films in Saleh's 'Cairo trilogy', The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) and (2023), is a hoot as an egotistical dilettante whose dreams of an easy life in a difficult country are scuppered in brutal fashion. It's an Armando Iannucci-esque send-up of something deadly serious Saleh uses the first half to poke fun at both the regime and the actor, before hairpinning into a final stretch where things turn dark very quickly. It's a jarring tonal shift – like Argo suddenly turning into Costa-Gavras's Z – that makes logical sense but still jolts after all the old-man Viagra jokes that came before. And Eagles of the Republic doesn't serve its female characters especially well. The coolly intellectual wife of a regime figure, Suzanne (Zineb Triki), loses all colour once she falls into bed with George, a man she'd surely see right through, and the actor's loyal, long-time co-star Rula (Cherien Dabis) is reduced to a pawn in the fast-thickening plot. Neither has the impact of the menacing Dr Mansour (Amr Waked), a state security overseer of few words behind the on-set monitor. This is not, of course, the kind of movie you can make in Egypt – or the kind of movie you can make if you have any great desire to live there again. El-Sisi has been the country's president since 2014 and Eagles of the Republic 's world of brutal repression, artistic censorship, and toadying military types jostling for position feels dangerously real. A satire with a dissident energy and a dark denouement, it's an Armando Iannucci-esque send-up of something deadly serious.
