The Yacoubian Building (2006)

The Yacoubian Building (Arabic: عمارة يعقوبيان‎, transliterated: ʿImārat Yaʿqūbīān or Omaret Yakobean) is an Egyptian film based on the novel of the same title by author Alaa Al Aswany. It has been reported to be the highest-budgeted film in the history of Egyptian cinema.

Synopsis

The film opens with a montage tracing the building's history, as wealthy expatriate and Egyptian residents give way, after the 1952 coup that overthrew King Farouk and eventually resulted in the installation of Gamal Abdel Nasser as President of Egypt, to new families, and as the rooftop storage rooms are converted into living space for lower-class families. The rooftop community, effectively a slum neighborhood, is symbolic of the urbanization of Egypt and of the burgeoning population growth in its large cities in recent decades, especially among the poor and working classes. In the faded apartments of the main floors and on the building's teeming roof, the films's principal characters are introduced:

Actors