by Mohamed Diab
An ordinary day, the year is 2013. Egypt descends into chaos following a national uprising and a military coup. While Mursi supporters and military personnel battle it out on the streets, people of various groups find themselves crammed into the back of a police van: Muslim brothers, soldiers, Christians, progressives and conservatives, men and women, violent and non-violent – a concentrate of Egyptian society. Over the course of the day, patience wears thin and tensions rise. As viewers, we are at the very centre of the action, and when the truck door finally opens, we, along with everybody else present, want to immediately slam the door closed again. CLASH is an elaborately staged, breathtakingly intimate film poised somewhere between an action-packed drama and an absurd farce.