IMMOBILIA CRIME STORY

Synopsis

A celebrated novelist, alone in Cairo's Immobilia building since his wife's death, invites a woman he met online into his apartment — and into a crime he does not see coming.

Written and directed by Khaled El Hagar and produced by Khaled Youssef and Ahmed Afifi, Immobilia Crime Story is a psychological thriller built almost entirely inside one of downtown Cairo’s most recognisable buildings. Kamal Helmy is a well-known writer living alone in the Immobilia since his wife’s death, sunk in a depression he manages mostly by not leaving the apartment. He strikes up a friendship online with a younger woman, Samah, and invites her over. What follows is a crime, and the slow understanding that he has been the mark all along.

The screenplay draws on a real case. El Hagar shoots the building as a closed system — corridors, lifts and stairwells that keep returning the characters to each other.

Cinematography by Nestor Calvo (A.E.C.), art direction and costume by Rehab Elmaghraby, sound design by Gomaa Abdellatif, music by Khaled Dagher, editing by Manar Hosny. Worldwide distribution by Misr Arabia Films; distributed in Egypt by Misr International Films. The film opened in Egyptian cinemas on 20 February 2019.