Khaled Abol Naga Movies

Where does legitimate concern end and paranoia begin? A man finds himself walking that fine line in this tense independent drama. Terry Allen (Peter Krause) is an accountant who lives a seemingly ordinary life until he loses his job. Unable to buy the new house he was hoping to get for his fiancée, Marla (Kari Matchett), Terry spends most of time in his apartment, looking for job leads, sending out resumés, and feeling increasingly powerless. As Terry watches more and more stories about the war on terror on cable news channels, he begins developing an intense suspicion of his new neighbor Gabe Hassan (Khaled Abol Naga), an Arab exchange student. Terry notices Gabe keeps late hours, takes out his trash in the middle of the night, and has a lot of visitors of Middle Eastern descent dropping by his flat, and slowly Terry becomes convinced Gabe is involved in terrorist activities. Terry visits Tom Hillary (Richard Schiff), an FBI agent, and tells him about Gabe and his habits; Tom doesn't pay much attention to what Terry has to say, and convinced danger lurks, he decides to take the law into his own hands. Civic Duty received its world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Egyptian director Hani Khalifa's heavily praised ensemble comedy drama Sahar el Layaly (aka Sleepless Nights, 2004) observes the romantic dysfunction plaguing several couples, three of whom are married, and all of whom have known each other for ages. However much they might try, Amr (Ahmed Helmi) and Farah (Hanan Turk) cannot completely forget Farah's prior engagement to another man, Ali (Khaled Abul-Naga), or erase from their minds the fact that Amr is now doing better on a financial level than he ever could have as a single person. Meanwhile, housewife Perry (Mona Zaki) recoils at the thought of her husband Khaled's (Fathi Abdel Wahab) constant amorous infidelities. As this occurs, the wife of the aforementioned Ali, Moushira (Gihan Fadel), grapples with dissatisfaction over the physical intimacy of their relationship. And the one unmarried woman, Inas (Ola Ghanem), rethinks her relations with boyfriend Sameh (Sherif Mounir) thanks to the latter's fear of commitment. Khalifa spends his narrative segueing between substories, and working toward a resolution for each. This film had the distinction of being one of the most sexually open films in Egyptian cinema up through the time of its production. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi