Diamond Dust

Taha works as a pharmacist in Cairo and looks after his father, who uses a wheelchair. Coming home one morning he finds him dead. The police close the file quickly, so Taha starts his own investigation and learns there was a side to his father's life he knew nothing about. Marwan Hamed adapted Ahmed Mourad's novel and uses the genre fully: Cairo at night, dark stairwells, a secret reaching back into history. Its best perception is the point where the crime stops being personal and turns out to sit inside a system. Asser Yassin leads, with Menna Shalabi and Maged El Kedwany. It opened on 16 August 2018 and runs two and a half hours. Its flaws: the length, flashbacks that slow the telling, and a final act explanation that leaves realism behind. The violence is also aestheticised past what the genre needs. Who it is for: viewers who like the newer wave of Egyptian thrillers. Who it is not for: anyone wanting something tight and short.