Premiere of the movie “Clash” by Mohamed Diab

The second feature film by this Egyptian director will be coming out at Spanish movie theaters on June 2.

Mohamed Diab is an award-winning Egyptian screenwriter and director whose work tends to rub salt in the wounds created by Egyptian society’s troubles. He became known thanks to his first feature film Cairo 678, which premiered in Egypt before the revolution broke out (it was also screened at Casa Árabe in late 2016). In that film, he discusses three Cairo women’s struggle against sexism and sexual harassment.

Clash is his second feature film, co-produced by Egypt, France and the United Arab Emirates. The film, set in the summer of 2013, a few days after the fall of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, tells a story about transporting a group of arrested demonstrators with very different political and religious ideals together in a police van. It is a metaphor for what happened in the country after the president’s removal, with demonstrations that caused hundreds of victims and turned Cairo into a city of chaos.

Mohamed Diab, accompanied by his brother Khaled, created 13 different versions of the script, filmed in just 8 square meters and 26 days, with the full cast of actors appearing in every scene. Without a doubt, the director’s work with a full set of actors is amazing, with a highlight on the participation by actress Nelly Karim, the biggest star in Egyptian film today. She has placed her trust in the director once again, after her starring role in the film Cairo 678.
 
After being seen in the section “Un certain regard” at the Cannes Film Festival, Clash was presented as a competitor at the last Seminci festival, where Mohamed Diab came away with the “Pilar Miró” Award for Best New Director, as well as taking the Best Director of Photography Award, for Ahmed Gabr, and the Sociograph Award, granted by the consulting firm Sociograph for the film with the greatest impact at the festival.

Diab recently returned to Cannes to become a member of the jury for the section in which his film became so well-known. That is where he just received acknowledgment as Best Director and for the Best Screenplay awarded at the first edition of the Arab Critics’ Award, selected by 26 critics from 15 countries.

Plot summary: Cairo, Summer of 2013. Two years have gone by since Egypt’s revolution. Immediately after the Islamist president Morsi was brought down, dozens of demonstrators with different political and religious convictions are arrested during a series of violent disturbances. They all end up in the same police van. Will they be able to get beyond their differences to come out unharmed?

Movie preview: