Sonallah Ibrahim

Sharaf may dream of being fabulously rich, but when he ends up in prison after killing a man in defense of his honor, he has to wake up fast. Prison mirrors the outside world, with all its systemic inequality, injustice and corruption––although, even here, Sharaf believes he can make his fortune.

At the early fifties in Syria, a man meets Salama, Mustafa, Hussein, and Youssef, all of whom oppose the dictatorial authority, when he is thrown into a political prison due to a misunderstanding, after which he finds himself in a place other than what he imagined, living in a difficult intellectual struggle.

Based on Sonallah Ibrahim's celebrated novel, "Zaat" explores the social and political winds of change in Egypt starting from 1952, when the main character "Zaat" was born, all the way up to the present day.