“The Middle East is a gold mine for drama,” says Mohamed Diab from the Venice Film Festival, where his new film Amira has just played in the Horizons strand.
The Egyptian filmmaker behind Cairo 678 and Clash is in Italy, a short hop from Budapest, where he is currently filming Moon Knight, Marvel’s new television show.
But while the filmmaker, 43, and his producer-wife Sarah Goher have spent the past three years in America pitching to Hollywood studios, he is just as attached to telling stories from the Mena region.
“I love being in the chocolate factory in Marvel and playing with all the toys,” he tells The National. “But I love Amira. Amira’s process was unbelievable. There were things I cannot dare to do on a Marvel show. Even not having close-ups or mediums … you take bigger risks.”
The Arabic-language Amira is certainly a risk, telling a story of parentage and rebellion that was inspired by a news story about Palestinian prisoners in Israel who smuggle their sperm out of jail. As the film explains, more than 100 children have been conceived in this manner.
“The moment I read about it, I thought ‘Is this a science fiction film?’. It’s so weird and yet so human. It’s a symbol of survival. To Palestinians, this is an untouched topic.”
So much so, the real smuggling method is unknown. “They keep it secret. No one knows. There are rumours about how they do it, but they don’t tell anyone. One of the rumours is they put it in candy bars and then slip it under the glass [partition, between prisoners and visitors].”
Diab and his co-writers, his siblings Khaled and Sherin, came up with a credible alternative: a sealed plastic packet stored in a coffee cup full of ice.
Diab’s stories are often ripped from the headlines. For Cairo 678, he read about the first woman to file a sexual harassment case in Egypt. “I went to the trial myself and then I started to write the movie.”
He spent two years “immersing myself with women … trying my best to listen”. It was the same for Amira, with Diab doing his due diligence by talking to Palestinians wherever he could.
“It’s such an educational thing. It changed me as a human being.”
In truth, the smuggled sperm is only the springboard into a gripping melodrama, as the incarcerated Nuwar (Ali Suliman) and his wife Warda (Saba Mubarak) decide to have a second child. Their first, Amira (Tara Abboud), 17, was conceived via artificial insemination, too, with the same covert methods they are now planning to use again.
But then the doctors discover that Nuwar is sterile, and always has been. So who is Amira’s father? It sets the wilful teenager on a mission to discover her origins.
Apart from his cinematographer and his editor, Diab’s crew was all Palestinian, something he felt was crucial to help craft a believable narrative.
“I went with complete humility, knowing that I shouldn't explore a different country and a different culture, and one of the most sensitive situations in our lifetime, without guidance.”
Despite striving for authenticity, Diab had to shoot in neighbouring Jordan, owing to the complications of filming in Palestine.
“Jordan, for the past 10 years, they joined Morocco in being very open and very attractive to filmmakers around the world. They have great crews who work on international projects all the time. So they’re very professional. And the Royal Film Commission – any problem, they solve it. The government itself is very supportive of filmmaking.”
In terms of his own career, Diab’s support has also come from Hollywood’s finest. Take the claustrophobic Clash, which opened Cannes’s Un Certain Regard in 2016, telling the intense story of protesters locked in a police van during demonstrations at the tail-end of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi’s reign in 2013.
A-list star Tom Hanks got vocal on Twitter in support of the film, telling his followers “you simply must” see it. When Ethan Hawke, with whom Diab is working on Moon Knight, saw the film, he also went crazy for it. “He told me: ‘This is America … we should remake the film here.',” says Diab.
After studying in America, Diab is now embedding himself in Hollywood. He has a sci-fi project at Thunder Road Pictures “about a future with less resources”. Over at Blumhouse Productions, the hugely successful company behind Paranormal Activity, The Purge and the Oscar-winning Get Out, he has another fantasy story in development.
“Imagine a superhero in the Midwest who is a Syrian immigrant,” he says. “It’s a very entertaining political film. I remember Jason Blum told me: ‘This will be the next Get Out’, which is the best thing in the world to be said.”
During the pandemic, he was invited to pitch directing four episodes of Marvel’s Moon Knight. He and his wife read the first episode and conjured up a 200-page document, which got them in front of Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige.
“The moment we finished that pitch, I told Sarah, ‘If we didn’t get the job for this, something is wrong in the world. This is too good!’” Fortunately, they were successful, and now Diab is directing Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac, who plays Marc Spector, a former US marine and CIA agent, who is granted special powers by the Egyptian moon god Khonshu.
Alongside Hawke and Isaac is Egyptian actress May Calamawy, who was born in Bahrain. “The three of them are shining. They are doing an unbelievable job,” says Diab, who can barely contain his excitement.
“To have those serious actors for a project like this, a Marvel show, it means it’s special. And we’re doing something really special. It’s a different experience … making [a story with] an American character, learning about the culture, understanding more and making something funny with action. It’s teaching me about myself. Teaching me I can do something different.”
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-finals, first leg
Liverpool v Roma
When: April 24, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Anfield, Liverpool
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome
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Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
