A 14-year-old girl in 1948 Palestine watches from a locked pantry as catastrophe consumes her home. Read More
To watch a pornographic film in Egypt, you need four things: the videotape; a VCR; a television; and a place to watch it. Three horny Egyptian 20-somethings try to pull these elements together in a day-long 'mission-impossible' to watch what is euphemistically called "thaqafi" (cultural) -- a codeword for porn meant to keep parents, friends and colleagues out of the loop (and those in the know in).
The residents of the Mokattam area are in a state of joy. Shata has been married to the dancer (Ahlam), but (Ahlam) has a lover's heart (Awad). In order to resolve the situation, Awad must arrange for the expenses of the marriage within a few days and the introduction of Ahlam's speech. Awad tries to help Awad and thinks that she is overdoing herself. Awad is committing a process closer to armed robbery and stealing his brother's clothes to sell. Ahlam is staying in an apartment of a foreigner to help her boyfriend buy the net.
A raucous and amazingly irreverent look at contemporary Cairo, THE ASPHALT KING centers on Sayed, a swaggering cabdriver and (to his mind) born womanizer. Embroiled in a torrid affair with a buxom neighbor, Sayed pays his best friend Ringo to keep the neighbor's barber husband busy -- but the husband, as well as Ringo, Sayed's mother, father, sister and grandfather, have their own amorous intrigues brewing. Director Oussama Fawzi has been hailed as the brightest young director to have recently emerged in Egyptian cinema.
