Swedish director Tarik Saleh unveiled his third narrative feature film “The Nile Hilton Incident” in the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
Egypt’s 2011 revolution provides the backdrop for Saleh’s political thriller, which incrementally shifts focus from the grimy backstreets of Cairo to the highest levels of Parliament in the course of a scandalous murder investigation.
The story revolves around a cop investigating the murder of a beautiful singer in the days leading up to Egypt’s 2011 revolution that would eventually oust President Hosni Mubarak.
The cast of the film includes Fares Fares, Mari Malek, Mohamed Yousry, Yaser Aly Maher, Ahmed Seleem, Hania Amar and Ger Duany.
The film, based in part on a real-life 2008 case, has received mostly good reviews from critics.
“Blending procedural thrills with politicized commentary, this gripping import should attract sizable domestic interest following its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival,” noted Variety.
Hollywood Reporter described the “The Nile Hilton Incident” as a type of “penetrating filmmaking” that “only a writer-director intimately familiar with Egyptian culture but possessing an outsider’s perspective could convincingly accomplish.”
