BOY FROM HEAVEN

US Premiere


TRAILBLAZERS | WORLD

Sweden 2022, 125 min, Director: Tarik Saleh

In the latest from Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident), Tawfeek Barhom plays a naive religious-scholarship student thrilled to be at Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University—until finding himself pulled into a cascade of murders, conspiracies, and paranoia. The ensuing labyrinthine plot lets Saleh explore the tumult of jockeying for influence between religious and ostensibly secular institutions in Egypt, and the insidious corruption that’s endemic to both. With a strong cast and a point of view that’s somehow at once artfully detached and deeply committed, Boy from Heaven mixes moviemaking styles familiar from the likes of Terry Gilliam’s dark comedies and John le Carré’s spy dramas, fashioning a film that’s as much a biting satire as a political thriller. More than ten years after the Arab Spring, this story is as timely as ever, and relevant no matter where in the world you live. —Zaki Hasan

INVITED GUEST: writer-director Tarik Saleh

In Arabic with English subtitles

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Director

Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh was a graffiti artist before turning to filmmaking. He began his career with two documentaries, SACRIFICIO: WHO BETRAYED CHE GUEVARA (2001), winner of a Coral Award at the Havana Film Festival, and GITMO (2005). He made his narrative debut with METROPIA (2009), winner of the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the Venice Film Festival. THE NILE HILTON INCIDENT (2017) won the Sundance Film Festival’s Word Cinema – Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and five Guldbagge Awards, including Best Film. His other features are TOMMY (2014) and THE CONTRACTOR (2022).

Film Info

countries:

Sweden

Year:

2022

Running Time:

125

Director:

Tarik Saleh

Producers:

Fredrik Zander, Kristina Åberg

Cinematographers:

Pierre Aïm

Editors:

Theis Schmidt

Writers:

Tarik Saleh

Cast:

Tawfeek Barhom, Fares Fares

sections:

WORLD CINEMA

venues:

Rafael 3
|
Sequoia 2