Boy From Heaven

The film is a co-production between Sweden, France and Finland. It had its world premiere on 20 May 2022 at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, where it was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. Saleh was awarded Best Screenplay, and the film received the François Chalais Prize at Cannes. It was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards but was not nominated.

Boy from Heaven
Swedish theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tarik Saleh
Written by	Tarik Saleh
Produced by	Kristina Åberg Fredrik Zander
Starring	Tawfeek Barhom Fares Fares Mohammad Bakri Makram Khoury Mehdi Dehbi Moe Ayoub Sherwan Haji Ahmed Lassaoui Jalal Altawil Ramzi Choukair
Cinematography	Pierre Aïm
Edited by	Theis Schmidt
Music by	Krister Linder
Production companies	Atmo (Sweden) Memento (France) Bufo (Finland)
Distributed by	TriArt Film (Sweden) Memento (France)
Release dates	20 May 2022 (2022-05-20) (Cannes) 26 October 2022 (2022-10-26) (France) 18 November 2022 (2022-11-18) (Sweden)
Running time	126 minutes
Countries	Sweden France Finland
Language	Arabic
Box office	$4.9 million

Adam, the son of a fisherman from a village near El Manzala, accepts an offer to study at the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. Shortly after his arrival, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar suddenly dies and a power struggle to replace him ensues. The NSA (security service) strives to install sheikh Beblawi, but he has two competitors: neutral sheikh Negm, who is blind, and a Salafi sheikh Durani.

Adam makes friends with Zizu, who is an informer for Colonel Ibrahim from the NSA. Zizu is soon killed, and Adam tries to help solve his murder by working for Ibrahim. He infiltrates a group of extremists and gathers information about them, but he learns that they had no involvement with the murder. Once the extremists realise his role, they attempt to kill Adam, but Ibrahim stops them and forces their leader to quit and leaves his position as Durani's assistant in favour of Adam.

Sheikh Negm turns himself in to the NSA and claims that he killed Zizu. The NSA is forced to arrest him despite knowing that he is not guilty. While doing menial tasks for Durani, Adam discovers that he has an illegitimate child, which disqualifies him. Sheikh Beblawi is elected Grand Imam.

Ibrahim's superior, Sobhi, orders him to kill Adam, revealing that NSA murdered Zizu too. Ibrahim is shocked and tries to help Adam to escape, but he is captured. Sobhi attempts to pressure Adam into confessing that he murdered Zizu. Ibrahim too gets arrested, but he manages to persuade General Sakran to arrange a meeting between Adam and Negm: Negm knows about NSA's role in Zizu's murder and plans to reveal it to the media during the trial; Ibrahim thinks that Adam can persuade Negm to reconsider. Adam succeeds and is let go.

Adam returns to his home village wearing al-Azhar's signature turban. He thanks his village imam, but is unable to say what he has learnt at the university. In the final scene of the film he joins his father in the fishing boat.

The film was shot primarily at the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

The film had its world premiere on 20 May 2022 at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, where it was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or.

It was released in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia as Cairo Conspiracy.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's consensus reads, "Although it may not fully unlock the promise of its tension-rich setting and premise, Cairo Conspiracy's strong performances and sophisticated script offer solidly satisfying compensation". According to Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on 14 critics, the film received "generally favorable" reviews.

Accolades

The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, and made the December shortlist.

• List of submissions to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of Swedish submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film