In the throbbing heart of a non-place on the margins of existence, Al Nag’ rises as a landscape of precariousness and survival, trapped between the relentless cycle of production and the devastating mark of capitalist extraction. This forgotten corner of Alexandria, in the ghost district of Al Wardiyan, is not just a physical space but a symbol of the systemic oppression that dictates the fate of those who inhabit it. Here, amid the toxic fumes of a refinery and the incessant clamor of a packaging factory, two brothers, Hossam and Maro, move through life—condemned to renunciation before they ever had the chance to choose.

Hossam is twenty-three, Maro is twelve—an age when hope should not yet be corrupted by disenchantment. The death of their father, Said, crushed in the machinery of industrial exploitation, seals their fate. The factory director, Karim, offers the family a transaction to fill the void of their loss: jobs for the two young men in exchange for waiving their rights. A bargain that epitomizes the logic of power: justice replaced by convenience, pain reduced to a commodity. Aware of his economic irrelevance, Hossam accepts the deal, swallowing his pride under the weight of family responsibility.

A month later, the brothers step into the factory, located in a place emblematically called "The Settlement"—an encampment that is less a promise of stability and more the stage for an unending conflict. Here, the past returns in the form of Mustafa, the man suspected of being responsible for Said’s death. In this microcosm, every gesture is a survival strategy, every glance an act of surveillance. The workers eye Hossam with suspicion, anticipating the inevitable clash between the need to move forward and the desire for revenge. But it is not just the labor community that demands a reaction—Maro, with the fierce innocence of childhood, also expects his brother to answer the call of blood, seeking in conflict a key to understanding the world around him.

As the director states, the attraction to industrial spaces is not merely aesthetic: they embody the beating heart of a society that survives on the invisibility of its human cogs. Egyptian cinema has rarely explored these places, yet they are merciless mirrors of our social reality. They are arenas where the drama of survival plays out daily, theaters where the contradictions of a society that promises emancipation but offers only exploitation are laid bare.

The idea for the film was born from an encounter with a young man who told the story of his father’s death—a construction worker—and his own employment in the same site that had killed him. In this story lies the brutal essence of social compromise: the acceptance of pain as the price of existence. From this, a question arises about imposed destiny, the father-son bond, and the cycle of repeating injustices.

During the making of the film, the goal was to present an authentic image of this reality by selecting harsh locations, marked by toil and resignation yet imbued with a tragic beauty. The casting followed the same logic: faces etched by time and struggle, capable of conveying rage and love, hope and disillusionment. The blend of professional actors and real workers helped anchor the narrative in a realism that defies fiction.

This film is an exploration of the human condition, the perpetuation of marginalization, and the dialectic between domination and resistance. In a world where legality is a privilege and justice a mirage, the boundaries between victim and oppressor dissolve. Maro, a silent observer of this theater of subjugation, tries to decipher the social mechanism, attempting to construct his own understanding of the world. But in a system that normalizes oppression, critical awareness is a luxury few can afford.

Egyptian neorealism, illegality, distrust, and compromise—this is the stage on which our characters move, trapped in a narrative seemingly written by forces beyond their control. Yet cinema, in its subversive power, can give them a voice, turning testimony into resistance, image into political action.

18-Feb-2025 by Beatrice