Cairo Time English Romantic Movie 2009
Cast And Crew
Cast :Patricia Clarkson ,Alexander Siddig, Elena Anaya , Tom McCamus ,
Amina Annab , Cynthia Amsden ,Andrew ,Cullen ,Mona Hala ,Fadia Nadda ...
Director:Ruba Nadda
Writer: Ruba Nadda
Genre: Drama | Romance
Country: Canada
Language: English
Release Date: October 30, 2009
Plot Summary:
A romantic drama about a brief, unexpected love affair that catches two people completely off-guard..
In Cairo on her own as she waits for her husband, Juliette finds herself caught in a whirlwind romance with his friend Tareq, a retired cop. As Tareq escorts Juliette around the city, they find themselves in the middle of a brief affair that catches them both unawares.Watch online Movie Trailer free Cairo Time Hollywood film.The film Directed by Ruba Nadda
Cairo Time Hollywood Movie Review :
The time is actually the present, which makes it all the more a welcome relief to catch a film set in the Middle East that is bereft of bloodshed and violence and political turmoil. Cairo Time – winner of the Best Canadian Feature Award at the recent Toronto International Film Festival – is an elegantly understated story of unlikely love.
Apart from the splendours of Cairo, the pivot to this picture is magnificent American actress Patricia Clarkson. She is cast as Juliette, an oh-so-reserved, seemingly repressed magazine editor who comes to Cairo to hook up with her husband, a United Nations representative stationed in Gaza. But when his work delays him from their rendezvous, he dispatches Tareq (Alexander Siddig), a friend and former UN colleague to show her around.
Tareq, who now runs a coffee house in the city, knows all the charms of Cairo. Tareq is also unfailingly charming. Happily married though she may be, Juliette can’t resist his Old World charm. She is totally captivated.
Their relationship is initially rooted in cultural confusion. She tells him how happy she is to visit the Middle East. “Middle of what,” he innocently responds. He has never understood that designation for this area.
Juliette then tells Tareq that her daughter is studying creative writing in college. Again, he is befuddled: “How is she ever going to make a living?” Juliette has no quick answer for that one.
Their romance simmers below the surface, threatening to explode but never quite doing so. Which makes the movie all the more enticing. In Hollywood, the couple would have hit the sack five minutes after the opening titles. If this had transpired here, viewers would have been denied breathtaking visuals of Cairo.
Besides, the principals here are far too well-mannered for that.
This romance is largely played out on another level. Despite the lack of physical contact between the couple, Juliette undergoes a spiritual awakening and connects with her emotional longings for the first time in eons. Subtle, yes, but oh so powerful all the same. Credit director Nadda for capturing the richness of Cairo and for giving her actors free rein to express feelings. She has a delicate touch, but she achieves what she set out to do.
Siddig – hard to believe he’s the same dude who played Dr. Bashir in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – is all class as the ever-genial, sensitive tour guide.
But if you want to talk acting, Clarkson – who has dazzled in everything from Far From Heaven on the big screen to Six Feet Under on the small screen – delivers a near-flawless performance. Her voice barely rises above Cairo’s street traffic, but – whoa! – she emotes with the best of them: a tiny flick of the hand, a shake of her hair, a darting eye movement speak volumes here.
Nadda concurs that Clarkson is the glue. “This is a simple love story, and I knew I had to get the perfect actress to bring it to life,” says Nadda, 36 – no slouch in the charm department herself – who is in Montreal to promote the picture. “Patricia was my first choice, and she is just dynamite. I needed someone who wasn’t going to overact – someone who could say it all with subtle facial expressions.”
Nadda was born in Montreal and spent 10 years here before moving with her family to Damascus, then to Toronto, where she currently resides.
My father said this week that leaving Montreal was the biggest mistake he ever made. When he first left his native Damascus, he settled in Toronto – for two weeks. Then in the middle of the night, he decided it was ridiculous for him to be in Toronto and he drove to Montreal. He said Toronto was just so dead then.” (Then?)
Her fascination with Cairo came about while she was living in Damascus. “We would go to Cairo for vacation. It was like the Hollywood of the Middle East for us, so beautiful and intoxicating. The history and the atmosphere are so rich. Something magical happens when you arrive there. The city just left this imprint on my brain, and I was never able to forget it.”
Nadda notes that it’s also refreshing to see a “chick-flick,” not a war flick set in that part of the world. But she is quick to add that the romance on screen is not based on her relationship. “My boyfriend is about as far removed from Cairo as possible,” she cracks. “He is from Newfoundland and Canadian through and through.”
On the subject of Canadiana, Nadda finds it ironic, too, that Cairo Time took best Canadian film honours at the Toronto fest. She might be Canadian, but Clarkson hails from New Orleans and the
Sudan-born Siddig lives in London. David Collins, one of the producers, is from Ireland, and exec-producer Christine Vachon (Far From Heaven, Boys Don’t Cry) is a Yank.
“Even more ironic is that my previous films, set in Toronto, were rejected by the Toronto festival,” Nadda says. “And they were Canadian in every sense. There is no pretense about Cairo Time being Canadian – other than it was Canadian financed. It’s just a film, but it wins for best Canadian film. So it goes.”
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