EGYPT: Much ado about a movie

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A new film portraying the inhumane living conditions in Cairo slums has stirred a huge controversy in Egypt. The movie, ‘Heena Maysara,’ (An Arabic expression widely used to mean ‘when things improve’) zooms into the social dynamics that govern the slum areas where thousands of Cairenes struggle amid poverty and ignorance, drawing very little attention from the ruling elites. The movie tackled prostitution, street children, incest, drug smuggling, homosexuality and religious extremism as examples of deviant practices that are widespread among Cairo’s marginalized communities.

All this is highlighted through the stories of two main characters: ‘Adel Hashisha’ and ‘Nahed.’ Adel Hashisha, a young unemployed man, supports his mother and the children of his brother who left for Iraq in the 1990s. To feed his family, Hashisha turns to drug smuggling and ultimately becomes one of his neighborhood’s top thugs. In the meantime, Hashisha also serves as a police informant spying on Islamist cells that have been growing in his neighborhood. However, after the police raids his house, tortures him and his mother to extract confessions from them about his brother who has allegedly joined Al Qaeda in Iraq, Hashisha decides to have his revenge by helping Islamist militants against the police.

Nahed is another significant character. The beautiful young woman runs away from her mother’s house as her step-father has been consistently harassing her sexually. She meets Hashisha, sleeps with him and gets pregnant by him. Given his terrible economic conditions, Hashisha refuses to marry Nahed or to raise the child, which forces the latter to abandon the infant. In her quest for a living, Nahed is exposed to different forms of sexual abuse. A scene in which another woman tries to seduce Nahed has caused a huge uproar.

One prominent Islamic scholar has called for prosecuting the two actresses who played that scene on charges of promoting lesbianism and fomenting vice. Another scholar was quoted by the media as saying: ‘There are no lesbians in Egypt and we will never have any in the future.’ However, one of the actresses involved replied: ‘The scene was neither explicit nor immoral; on the contrary, it was very realistic and relevant to the context of the movie.’

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo