Director Tarik Saleh on Depicting Tension Between State Security and Religious Power in Egypt in ‘Boy From Heaven’

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSwedish/Egyptian director Tarik Saleh is in competition in Cannes with “Boy From Heaven” his second film to delve into the underbelly of modern Egypt — and the Arab world at large — following his 2017 political thriller “The Nile Hilton Incident,” which depicted political power abuse and police corruption. “Nile Hilton” won the grand jury prize at Sundance and was banned in Egypt.In Saleh’s new potentially explosive pic, the young protagonist Adam, who is the son of a small-town Egyptian fisherman, is offered the privilege of studying at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which is the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam.

Shortly after his arrival in Cairo, the university’s highest-ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, suddenly dies. This prompts Adam to become a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elite.

Saleh spoke to Variety about how he navigated the thorny subject matter of his bold new political drama. Edited excerpts below.My grandfather went to Al-Azhar and I’ve always been fascinated by it.

So after “Nile Hilton,” I was thinking about Al-Azhar, and about how little people know about Islam in a way that I think is interesting.Of course, in the back of my head, when I was writing it, I was like: “Oh, can you really say this?