Ahmad Bedir

Cairo: a 70-year-old building of once-luxury flats with tenements on the roof. Zika, an aging libertine, feuds with his sister. Pius Haj Azzam takes a second wife, in secret, to satisfy sexual drive within religious bounds. Bothayna, poor and beautiful, supports her family, wanting to do so with dignity intact. Her former fiancé, Taha, the janitor's son, humiliated by the police, turns to fundamentalism. Hatem, a gay editor, seduces and corrupts a young man from the sticks. Two brothers, Copts, one a tailor and one Zika's factotum, connive for property. Allah is on most everyone's lips, and corruption is in their hearts.

Based on the best-selling novel of the same title. Dr. Shukri Mokhtar is a renowned social psychology specialist, best known for his ability to answer the simplest questions, who decides to give one last lecture about the very simple question: "how do we love?" He gives a full description of the different stages of love by recounting four different love stories going through curves and various crises.

Based on the Ayyat train accident that killed 361 in 2002, this ensemble drama delves into the intense human stories of the passengers in a third-class coach car during the hour and a half before the crash.