FILM SCREENINGS

The Hunger

1986. Egypt. Directed by Ali Badrakhan. With Souad Hosny, Mahmoud Abdel Aziz, Yousra. In this adaptation of episodes from Mahfouz’s 1977 novel The Harafish, a weak-willed man accidentally kills one of the gangsters to whom local merchants pay protection money. The resulting adulation goes to his head, as he profits during a famine and takes a second wife from a higher class. The film begins in 1887, but it draws unmistakable parallels with Egypt under more recent regimes. In Arabic; English and French subtitles. 120 min.