La Tempete (2001)

This drama from Egyptian filmmaker Khaled Youssef offers Western audiences an unusual perspective on the Gulf War, as a family is torn apart by conflicting personal and political allegiances. Hoda (Yousra) is a schoolteacher who became a single mother after her husband, a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, left his family behind. Ten years later, Hoda has raised her two sons, Aly (Mohamed Nagati) and Nagy (Hani Salama), to young adulthood, and has declined to remarry, despite the presence of her supportive boyfriend Mahmoud (Hisham Selim). Nagy has fallen in love with Hayat (Hanan Tork), a student and political activist from a wealthy family, but her parents don't want her to marry a man without a fortune of his own. As Nagy tries to save enough money to convince Hayat's family he's a worthy husband, Aly decides to help by getting a job to make more money for the family; however, work is hard to come by in Egypt, so he moves to Iraq to take a position there. Once Aly has settled into his new life in Iraq, the war in the Gulf breaks out, and the two brothers discover to their horror that they're fighting in opposing armies -- Aly comes home to swear allegiance to Egypt and join their forces, while Nagy, under the influence of Hayat, has thrown his support behind Iraq. La Tempete, aka Al Assifa received its American premiere at the 2001 San Francisco Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi