If people thought Brokeback Mountain to be controversial in its depiction of homosexuality in the West, it is time to think again. The recent release in Egypt of The Yacoubian Building has brought with it condemnation for its portrayal of police brutality, corruption, terrorism, and homosexuality.
Egyptians can handle just about anything, but homosexuality, for some, crosses the line.
The Yacoubian Building is based on a book by Alaa Al Aswani, which depicts a fictitious story based on people living in Cairo's real Yacoubian building. The book, by the Cairo dentist, was an instant bestseller across the Arab world.
The film is the most expensive movie ever produced in Egypt and has been destroying all box office records since its release a few weeks back.
However, despite the popularity of the film, the blatant depiction of homosexuality in it has created a divide among Egyptians and members of parliament.
One-hundred-and-twelve Egyptian deputies have decided to bring the issue to a head, creating a committee to review the movie and decide what should be cut; Scenes portraying homosexuality top the list.
"Mustafa Bakri [MP] saw it and he was enraged and came to the people's assembly saying one-third of the movie is about perversion," says Hamdi Hassan, head of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in parliament.
"This depiction of perversion is unjustified. These scenes are rejected by religion and the values of the Egyptian society, even if the society suffers from these problems," he adds.
However, Hassan says that the Brotherhood - the banned yet tolerated opposition group - has no intention of asking for the film to be censored.
"We are in a critical time when we support the practicing of all freedoms of expression. We are suffering from repression in a closed society, and calling for omission or banning would be a road to confusion," he argues.
"As a citizen I felt hurt when I watched it. I respect freedom of expression and creativity, but this is neither," Bakri told the BBC.
Homosexuality is not new in the Egyptian art scene. Novels by Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt's Nobel laureate, and several films by director Youssef Chahine portray same-sex encounters. In 1993, Mercedes, a film by Yousri Nasrallah, the central character, had a gay brother with a lover as well as a drug-addicted lesbian aunt.
The Brotherhood is at odds with other Islamist groups across the region in their desire not to censor the art industry. In 2002, the Lebanese censors, at the request of Hizbullah, raided the Beirut Virgin Megastore snatching CDs and DVDs from the shelves including Frank Sinatra discs and Elizabeth Taylor DVDs.
The reason why Egypt's Islamists did not call for censoring the film might be as simple as the fact that The Yacoubian Building also offers a biting criticism of the Egyptian regime. One of the characters is sodomized in the police station and ends up joining an Islamist terrorist group.
The suggestion that state repression is a key factor in the recent political violence that has killed Egyptian tourists in the Sinai in the last four years may have been one of the main reasons that Aswani was not allowed to appear at the Cairo opening of the film.
The scene of sodomizing is eerily similar to the case of Mohammed Al Sharkawy, who following a demonstration in Cairo on May 25, accused the policemen at one of the local stations to have sodomized him using rolled up pieces of cardboard.
Still the Egyptian public is not as concerned, it appears, as is parliament over the homosexual depiction. One Cairo taxi driver called the movie brilliant and he says that he plans on seeing it a few more times before it is censored.
"This is a movie that shows Egypt as Egypt," says Ismail, an upper-class Egyptian man who was educated at Cairo University. He says that while he does not agree with the depiction of the same-sex relationship, this sort of thing occurs more often than Egyptians want to believe.
"Our society is like any other ... we have gay people, we have corruption, violence, but the government thinks that by hiding this from our eyes they will be able to create a society that will not question what they are doing," he continues.
The film will most undoubtedly be censored in the coming weeks, adding to the tension already rising in Cairo, where the issue of freedom of speech continues to generate a lot of anxiety. With press freedoms on hold for the moment, Egyptians had hoped that the uncensored film would move through Egypt's theaters without harm.
Egyptian press often dubs homosexuality the Western 'disease' that one can catch from impious foreigners. While Egypt technically has no laws against homosexuality, the government uses laws against 'debauchery' and 'immoral advertising' as a means of arresting gay men.
In 2001 approximately 100 men were put on trial following a police raid on a party in Cairo. They were described by local papers as being "Satanists."
Human Rights Watch has documented tens of cases where police have used the Internet and informants in order to arrest homosexuals.
The Yacoubian Building portrays a fictional story of a downtown building, but it appears that it is more reality than fiction.
'The Yacoubian Building,' a disturbing Egyptian reality?
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