'Eagles of the Republic' Yigit Eken Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Writer-director Tarik Saleh's Cairo Conspiracy, also known Boy From Heaven, put his Cairo trilogy on the world stage when it became Egypt's submission for the 2022 international feature Oscar and advanced to the shortlist. This year, the Swedish Film Institute's Oscar committee selected the trilogy's final chapter, Eagles of the Republic, as Sweden's 2026 Oscar contender. The political thriller dives into the heart of the Egyptian film industry and follows Egypt's biggest movie star, played by Fares Fares, as he's pulled into a labyrinth of corruption and state-driven propaganda after being pushed to lead a government-commissioned film. His descent becomes even more dangerous when he begins an affair with the enigmatic wife of the general controlling the production. The cast includes Lyna Khoudri, Amr Waked, Zineb Triki, Cherien Dabis and Sherwan Haji. Related Stories TV 'Dexter,' 'Yellowstone,' 'Star Trek' Get On-Demand Streaming Channels on SkyShowtime Movies Rotterdam Fest's CineMart Launches "Safe Harbour" Program for Stateless and At-Risk Filmmakers Shot in Istanbul and completed in Gothenburg, Eagles of the Republic premiered in competition at Cannes before heading to festivals including Toronto. The score is by two-time Academy Award winner Alexandre Desplat, and Playtime is handling international sales. Saleh, born in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and Egyptian father, spoke with THR about confronting power, life in exile, the strange resonance of recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump regarding the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the role filmmakers must play in a post-truth era. I find it interesting that you made a film about a film star and the making of a film, so there's all sorts of meta stuff. And you are currently in Hollywood to screen it. Can you talk a little bit about that experience?Yes, I am actually one of the rare filmmakers, even here in America, who has actually worked here a lot. It's very rare that people have shot in Hollywood. I did when I directed Westworld, and then when I did reshoots for The Contractor during COVID. I was staying in the same hotel that I am in right now, the Roosevelt, which is this Hollywood hotel that has all these rumors of being haunted. But the screenings I have had here have been magical, because in so many ways, this film is almost an homage to something like Sunset Boulevard. I am obsessed with Billy Wilder and with the way he was playing with fiction and truth. He had this tension between the two, and people don't realize it now. When you revisit Sunset Boulevard now, you realize how authentic that film is, what a dark portrait of this city it is. Cecil B. DeMille plays himself in the film, and he was trying to get Greta Garbo to play Norma Desmond. It was all that playing with reality in a way. What I'm trying to do is tell fictional stories in the real world. So, it was really moving to show the film here, because people feel so much love for cinema in this city. This is the mecca of film. And, at the same time, we feel the threats. Because when truth is under attack, in the news, in politics, then all of a sudden the question is: What is our role in telling fictional stories? If what is being told by politicians is fiction, what are we going to do? Are we going to start to do reality? It is a complicated relationship, and of course, that's partly what the film is about. It's about when you're forced, as an artist, to do propaganda. Watching Eagles of the Republic and looking around the world nearly felt like you timed the film to the post-truth age... Unfortunately. I wasn't very happy about that. When I wrote the script and when I directed it, I did not know where the world was going to head. I knew what was happening in Egypt. I knew that there was always this tension there, because the film industry in Egypt is one of the biggest film industries in the world. It serves one billion people with cinema and television. Of course, these mega stars in Egypt become iconic in a way that can only be compared to Hollywood's Golden Age. People project their dreams onto them. And the Egyptian army is huge. It is one of the 10 biggest armies in the world. When [Abdel Fattah] El-Sisi took power through a military coup [in 2013], the first thing he did was to decide that the army was going to take control of the film industry. And the Army has an [affiliated] company that is called United, which accounts for 30 percent of the country's economy. It's a huge problem. When they took over the film industry, it was like mobsters took over the big studios and production companies. The first thing they decided to do was a propaganda television series of El-Sisi's rise to power. And y