The Nile Hilton Incident

A detective film set in Cairo. The time is the winter of 2011. There is unrest in the streets; the large demonstrations have not started yet but something is in the air. A woman is found dead in a hotel. She is a singer; her throat has been cut and the scene is cleared quickly. Noredin works in homicide. He takes bribes, asks for his share of the cut, and treats it as ordinary; his superior is part of the same order. He is told to close this file. But there is a witness: a Sudanese cleaner who works at the hotel saw it, and she is in no record. From there the film becomes an investigation. The trail leads to a businessman and from there to parliament; at every step Noredin is told to stop. What the narrative is interested in is not the crime but the order: the film tells a corrupt policeman deciding to be honest not as heroism but as an accident. He is not a good man; this time he simply does not let go. The last section is in the streets and the uprising begins. Permission was not granted in Egypt; it was shot in Morocco, with Casablanca standing in for Cairo. Fares Fares plays Noredin. Mari Malek and Yasser Ali Maher are in the cast. Tarik Saleh wrote and directed. The film won the grand jury prize at Sundance. Who it is for: anyone who likes the noir tradition and political detective stories. Who it is not for: anyone expecting resolution; the narrative is interested not in justice being done but in how the case is closed.