Egyptian-Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh’s Cairo Conspiracy, the winner of Best Screenplay and the coveted François Chalais Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2022, has been shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, it was announced today.
The film, a thriller about the inner workings of the highly-influential Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo following the death of the Grand Imam and a corrupt political effort to replace him, was originally titled Boy From Heaven when it debuted at Cannes earlier this year.
Saleh is also the filmmaker behind the acclaimed film The Nile Hilton Incident, released in 2017.
Saleh is something of a firebrand filmmaker, making films that are provocative while not intended to provoke, according to the filmmaker, while also not trying to display Islam or Arab society to make things easier for Western audiences.
“To all the critics of ‘Boy from Heaven’ who will say I don’t provide enough context, I say no, sorry, I don’t owe you an explanation,” Saleh told me earlier this year. “I’m not here to teach you about Islam. Bong Joon Ho doesn’t explain Korean society. He’s not a teacher. He’s a filmmaker. A lot of Western people think they have a right to know. I say, no, you have a right to learn. You’re going to have to take this journey yourself.”
Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s film The Blue Caftan was also shortlisted.
Other films that were submitted from the region, such as Saudi filmmaker Mohamed Al Salman’s film Raven Song, were not selected.
One other Arab filmmaker was shortlisted, Egyptian-Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh, submitted from Sweden, for his film Cairo Conspiracy, originally entitled Boy from Heaven when it debuted at Cannes earlier this year.
Another Middle Eastern film, Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider, was also shortlisted, after also debuting at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Here’s the full list of selections:
Argentina, Argentina, 1985
Austria, Corsage
Belgium, Close
Cambodia, Return to Seoul
Denmark, Holy Spider
France, Saint Omer
Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front
India, Last Film Show
Ireland, The Quiet Girl
Mexico, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Morocco, The Blue Caftan
Pakistan, Joyland
Poland, EO
South Korea, Decision to Leave
Sweden, Cairo Conspiracy
According to the Academy, “5 films will advance to the next round of voting in the International Feature Film category for the 95th Academy Awards. Films from 92 countries and regions were eligible in the category. Academy members from all branches were invited to participate in the preliminary round of voting and must have met a minimum viewing requirement to be eligible to vote in the category,” said the announcement.
“In the nominations round, Academy members from all branches are invited to opt in to participate and must view all 15 shortlisted films to vote.”