George Fahmy (played by Fares Fares) is the Tom Cruise of Egyptian cinema, known as ‘The Pharoah of the Screen’. This gets you money and young girlfriends, but it has its drawbacks, such as being forced into making government propaganda, or trying to preserve your anonymity when buying Viagra. Fahmy quickly finds that flying with the political eagles leads him into a spiral of intrigue and betrayal.

Eagles of the Republic completes Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh’s ‘Cairo Trilogy’ (the second part of which, The Boy from Heaven, screened at AFF 2022), in which he deftly explores the complex political structures of contemporary Egypt. Saleh brilliantly skewers the military-backed government, but his theme has broad immediacy. Many of us think the political world can’t touch us, but it is increasingly difficult to hide from the brutal facts of power.