Directed by Youssef Chahine • 1999 • Egypt, France
Starring Hany Salama, Hanan Turk, Nabila Ebeed

This wildly plotted drama marks the end of Youssef Chahine’s love affair with the United States, commenting on everything from capitalist greed to American cultural imperialism to terrorism within the context of a roiling Oedipal soap opera. Nabila Ebeed—one of Egypt’s leading box-office stars of the ’80s and ’90s—plays the jealous, possessive matriarch of a rich family who will stop at nothing to destroy her son’s marriage to an intrepid investigative journalist chasing a story about corruption among wealthy elites that may just hit a bit too close to home. Look out for a cameo from none other than Palestinian-American superstar intellectual Edward Said.