Tarik Saleh is back with the third chapter of his Cairo trilogy, and it hits hard. Eagles of the Republic follows aging Egyptian movie star George Fahmy, played by Fares Fares, a pampered actor coerced into starring in a state-sponsored presidential biopic. The result is a sharp, darkly funny political thriller soaked in corruption, ego, and compromise.
Saleh, the Swedish-Egyptian director behind The Nile Hilton Incident and Cairo Conspiracy, has built a reputation skewering Egypt’s post-Mubarak power games. This one goes further, exposing how the film industry itself becomes a tool for propaganda when narcissism meets political pressure. Real news footage of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi is cut in, which takes serious nerve.
Critics are drawing comparisons to Billy Wilder, Bertolucci’s The Conformist, and Szabó’s Mephisto. Those are big names to invoke, but Saleh earns every one of them.
This is the political thriller 2025 desperately needed.
Source: Original Article
