The Yacoubian BuildingMovies like The Yacoubian Building
- Key Features:
- Social commentary, Corruption, Extremism, Class disparity, Sexuality, Urban life, Political intrigue, Poverty, Religious hypocrisy, Ensemble cast, Ancient Egypt, Interwoven stories
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, cynical
- Target Audience:
- World cinema enthusiasts, Viewers interested in social issues, Fans of Middle Eastern cinema, Those seeking thought-provoking dramas
- Emotional Arc:
- Disillusionment → Anger
The Yacoubian Building

The lives of residents in an old Cairo building, "The Yacoubian Building," are affected by issues like corruption, extremism, class disparity, and sexuality. Through diverse characters, the film offers a critical examination of Egyptian society.
The Yacoubian Building
Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.

A fisherman's son is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, dies and the young student becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite.

Cairo, 2011. A police officer investigates the murder of a woman in a luxurious hotel in the days leading up to the Egyptian revolution.

Three women seek justice due to the difficult daily situation which sexual harassment causes in the streets of Cairo, Egypt.

A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship challenged by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice.

Young Pharaoh Ramses XIII clashes with Egypt's clergy over influence on the affairs of the state and its coffers. inexperienced, but quite ambitious pharaoh is putting up a fight against a powerful clan of priests usurping rule over the country.

Seeking job opportunities, a young man arrives in Cairo and becomes increasingly involved with the family of a wealthy businessman.

The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

When two neighbours clash, their argument becomes less about proposed building alterations and more about the wider battle between class and social status. The hugely impressive building in question is the only example of a Le Corbusier residential home in all of Latin America, adding to the poignancy of their argument.

In 2013, in Cairo, a tragic fate brings together several detainees from different political and social backgrounds inside a police truck, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of president Morsi.

A man finds himself stuck in a mysterious time loop, reliving the same day again and again. As the cycle repeats, he is forced to confront his daily routines, question his relationships, and search for meaning in a world that refuses to change.

The film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Morocco’s Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation.

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, have sex, and choose.

Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

Three friends are arrested after committing an accident with their car. After finishing their sentence, they become partners with the owner of a decoration workshop. But he deceives them and spends the money in gambling. They force him to sign a waiver of his workshop but he wants to get it back.

Ajami is an area of Tel Aviv in Israel where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians live together in a tense atmosphere. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl: Hadir. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to find his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians.

An Egyptian-American returns to his homeland after twenty years abroad, filled with nostalgia and high hopes. But as he reconnects with his roots, he finds himself caught between two worlds—and begins to experience the reality of a country he thought he knew.

A group of drug-influenced lumpen teenagers from the suburbs of the city descends into the center where they do not belong, where they are excluded. They adopted a brutal method to seize rights that were not granted to them. Unaware of what will happen to them, cheerful and well-to-do university students are helpless in the face of this gun-wielding mob that suddenly raids the bar where they are having fun.

Someone is killing Parisians of Arab ethnicity. When an Algerian diplomat is murdered by the same assailant, two Algerian detectives are sent to help the French with the investigation and they have their own ways of doing things.

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.

The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

A social drama about four marginalized prostitutes in Marrakech and their complex relations with their families and society at large.

Samy lives happily with his wife, Alice, in a poor urban housing project amongst friends and neighbours. For his son’s birthday, the richest man in France throws open his grand department store, offering the boy whatever he wants. Alexandre chooses Samy, the night watchman, as his new toy…

Teacher in the most prestigious highschool in the country, François enjoys the life he’s always known, in the intellectual and bourgeois society of Paris. Trapped in a situation where he’s forced to accept a job in a school of a tough underprivileged suburb, he finds himself confronted to his own limits and to the upheaval of his values and certainties.

As a heat wave brings a Marseille neighbourhood to the boil, three roommates gleefully meddle in the lives of their neighbours from their balcony. Until a late night drink turns into a bloody affair.

Gab has a well-ordered life: a fiancée, a wealthy family. Leïla, who struggles to juggle her studies, odd jobs, and a brother to support, does not allow herself to live her own life... When Gab meets Leïla, it is a clash of worlds, the beginning of a great love story that will collide violently with reality.

18-year-old Layla, a Dutch girl with Moroccan roots, joins a group of radical Muslims. She encounters a world that nurtures her ideas initally, but finally confronts her with an impossible choice.

Zachary, 17 years old, gets out of jail. Rejected by his mother, he hangs out in the mean streets of Marseille. He falls in love with Shéhérazade, a young prostitute of whom he becomes the pimp without realizing it...

In Cairo on her own as she waits for her husband, Juliette finds herself caught in a whirlwind romance with his friend Tareq, a retired cop. As Tareq escorts Juliette around the city, they find themselves in the middle of a brief affair that catches them both unawares.

Tarek is a young man who is working at a telecommunications company,and he fell in love with a girl when he heard her voice in a radio talk show. A customer of the company he works at asks him to spy on a girl which stole a valuable thing from him. When Tarek does his searches, he discovers that she is the girl he have dreamed about.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

Set in 1881, a year before the start of British colonial rule, it is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that had been robbing a cache of mummies they have discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, and selling the artifacts on the black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members made a crucial decision when the Antiquities Service arrived.

Ahmed, 18, is French of Algerian origin. He grew up in the Parisian suburbs. On the benches of the university, he meets Farah, a young Tunisian full of energy recently arrived from Tunis. While discovering a body of sensual and erotic Arabic literature that he never knew existed, Ahmed falls deeply in love with this girl, and although literally overwhelmed by desire, he will try to resist it.

During the filming of a movie, actress Sandra Navarro denounces actor Daniel Zavala for sexual abuse on the set during the recording of a scene for the movie. Daniel pleads his innocence and the production tries to prevent the situation from leaking off the set and causing a scandal.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.

In Paris, Clara, psycho motor therapist, and Ismaël, music teacher, have been lovers for four years. Happy, the couple are expecting their first child and decide to move in together. But the news is not well received by their respective families because Clara is Jewish and Ishmael a Muslim. Although not practicing, this difference will gradually sow trouble in their love life.

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

The Fool is a movie about a simple plumber. An honest man, he is up against an entire system of corrupted bureaucrats. At stake are the lives of 800 inhabitants of an old dorm that is at risk of collapsing within the span of the night.

Sam, a freelance journalist, decides to investigate the growing phenomenon of disaffected youth joining extremist groups. He infiltrates a group of four young people who have been tasked with the creation of a jihadist cell and whose mission is to destabilise the city centre of Paris.

The exact details of what took place while Talib Ben Hassi was in police custody remain unclear. Police officers Jens and Mike are on routine patrol in Svalegården's ghetto when news of Talib's death comes in over the radio, igniting uncontrollable, pent-up rage in the ghetto's youth, who lust for revenge. Suddenly, the two officers find themselves fair game and must fight tooth and claw to find a way out.

After running away from his negligent parents, committing a violent crime and being sentenced to five years in jail, a hardened, streetwise 12-year-old Lebanese boy sues his parents in protest of the life they have given him.

Noumouké, from the suburb of Paris, is about to decide which brother's foot steps to follow - the lawyer student Soulaymaan or the gangster Demba.

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.

After a massive earthquake, only one apartment building is left standing in Seoul, South Korea. Survivors flock to Hwang Gung Apartments, but residents cannot cope with the increasing numbers.

The movie follows a group of young friends in the city of Tel Aviv and is as much a love song to the city as it is an exploration of the claim that people in Tel Aviv are isolated from the rest of the country and the turmoil it's going through. The movie looks at young people's lives in Tel Aviv through the POVs of gays and straights, Jews and Arabs, men and women.

In a decript apartment, a young man watches as his father and a friend shoot an amateur porn film. Issues of morality, reality TV and friendship are explored.

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

In a social context deteriorated by a countrywide economic crisis, the life of several people will be turned upside down after they meet Cécile, a character who symbolizes desire.

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.

Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.

The story of a guard who revolts because of exploiting reeve and tradespeople. People start to think he has an uncle working in the ministry of the interior.

In the heart of a city, the inhabitants of a tower wake up one morning to find that their building is shrouded in an opaque fog, obstructing doors and windows - a strange dark matter that devours anything that tries to pass through it. Trapped, the residents try to organize themselves, but to ensure their survival they gradually succumb to their most primitive instincts, until they sink into horror...

Kuba attends an art opening with his girlfriend of two years and bumps into Mikal. The connection between these two young men is instantaneous and intoxicating, and despite opposition from all sides, he allows Mikal into his life. The results go beyond anything he could have imagined. This intimate and bold second feature from Polish director Tomasz Wasilewski captures the often-complicated consequences of finding love where others do not want it.

Follows the lives of three families who live in a three-story building in a Roman neighbourhood.

After an emotional exchange between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee escalates, the men end up in a court case that gets national attention.

With the mayoral election approaching, the newly-appointed state prosecutor of a small town suffering from a water supply crisis gradually descends into trouble after a young local woman is raped.

Selman is a former boxer who once was interested in anthropology, an extraordinary imam who now works in a mosque. One day, while praying in the mosque, gunshots are echoed. One of the people inside collapses and dies. The police come to the scene and collect the first evidence and start the investigation process. He takes action after this event and decides to resolve the case through some people and circumstances he suspects. Every clue leads to an unexpected point and the events become increasingly mysterious.

A group of teenagers living in a housing project in the outskirts of Paris rehearse a scene from Marivaux's play of the same name. Krimo is determined not to take part, but after developing feelings for Lydia, he quickly assumes the main role and love interest in the play.

Somaieh, the youngest daughter of an indigent family, is getting married and fear is overwhelming each and every member of the family regarding how to overcome their difficulties after she's gone.

In a small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, the villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living off the earth and a few animals they feed. Fathers always prefer one of their sons. Mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. Ömer, the son of the imam, wishes hopelessly for the death of his father. When he understands that wishful thinking does not have any concrete results, he begins to search for childish ways to kill his father. Yakup is in love with his teacher, and one day after seeing his father spying on the teacher he dreams too, like Ömer, of killing his father. Yıldız studies and tries to manage the household chores imposed by her mother. She learns with irritation about the secrets of the relationship between men and women.

Abla runs a modest local bakery from her home in Casablanca where she lives alone with her 8-year-old daughter Warda. Their routine of housework and homework is interrupted one day by a knock on the door. It is Samia, a young woman looking for a job and a roof over her head. The little girl is immediately taken with the newcomer, but her mother initially refuses to allow a pregnant stranger into their home. Gradually, however, Abla's resolve softens and Samia's arrival begins to offer all of them the prospect of a new life.

Summer 1998—Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn.

A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler into a series of life-changing encounters in this drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. As he wanders through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commonality, but out of that commodity comes raw, unguarded emotions for all.

Twelve-year-old Noura dangles uncertainly in that difficult netherworld between childhood and adulthood. His growing libido has gotten him banned from the women's baths, where his mother took him when he was younger, but he's not yet old enough to participate in grown-up discussions with the men of his Tunisian village. Noura's only real friend is a troublemaker named Salih -- the village political outcast.

Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.

When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.

A small Egyptian police band travels to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves stuck in the wrong town.

A troubled young woman is thrown out of a convent and forms a relationship with a radical Muslim.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

Because he forgot his identity card, Elias cannot take the entrance exam to Sciences Po. In search of a job while waiting to be able to take the exam again, he becomes an educator in a children's home. Confronted with an environment he doesn't know how to work, Elias doesn't yet know how much this experience will change his life.

A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.

Two first-year students at Oxford University join a secret society and learn that their reputations can be made or destroyed over the course of one evening.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

While Aya has dreams of becoming a doctor, her two best friends, Adjoua and Bintou, just like to hang out and spend their evenings dancing, drinking and flirting with boys. Their ambition is to follow Plan C: Combs, Clothes and Chasing Men! But big trouble comes to town when Adjoua realizes she’s pregnant, and the baby’s father is the spoiled son of one of the richest and most feared men in the whole country.

Thirty-four year old Ramsès has established himself as a clairvoyant in La Goutte d’Or, Paris. A shrewd manipulator and something of a poet, he built a sound business consoling people. Elusive and dangerous youths, freshly arrived from the streets of Tangier, disrupt his business and the whole neighbourhood. Until the day Ramses has an actual vision.

Nineteen-year-old Laura is stressed by her first year at college when money worries distract her from her studies and so, desperate for cash, she answers an online advertisement for intimate companionship that leads her down a dangerous path.

Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity—upsetting her mother and her values in the process.

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.

Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.

Yusuf is released from prison after serving a ten year sentence. Because of unexpected problems at his sister’s house, he finds himself in a cheap hotel where he meets a man, a woman, and a child who will change his life in unexpected ways…

Salih is a mechanic and the son of a respected barber named Ali. A woman named Tina arrives at Cholera Street, where she takes up residence and works as a prostitute.

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

An old man and a young woman meet in Tokyo. She knows nothing about him, he thinks he knows her. He welcomes her into his home, she offers him her body. But the web that is woven between them in the space of twenty four hours bears no relation to the circumstances of their encounter.

In a ghetto where religion and drug trafficking rub shoulders, Dounia has a lust for power and success. Supported by Maimouna, her best friend, she decides to follow in the footsteps of Rebecca, a respected dealer. But her encounter with Djigui, a young, disturbingly sensual dancer, throws her off course.

Freshly hired as a labor nurse in a chemical factory, Nour discovers that small arrangements exist between management and her father, Slimane, the staff representative, and the company's pivot. Lies about polluting discharges, hidden illnesses of employees, hidden accidents ... Nour, little by little, no longer accepts the compromises of his father to preserve the image of the company. She decides to launch the alert.

In one of the poorest areas of Paris, a school counselor devotes herself to working with disadvantaged students, while facing challenges of her own.


