Start the week with a film: In ‘Eagles of the Republic’, a movie star becomes a propaganda tool

What do movie stars who headline pro-government propaganda films and videos actually feel about the process? What pressures are brought to bear on them? While we in India may not know for a long time, a film set in Egypt gives us some clues.

Tarik Saleh’s Eagles of the Republic (2025) revolves around the dilemma that faces George Fahmy (Fares Fares), who’s known to his fans as the "Pharaoh of the Screen. The box-office magnet is estranged from his wife, has a tense relationship with his son Rami, and has a lover just a little older than Rami’s girlfriend.

These personal niggles get entwined in a bigger mess for George when he is recruited to play Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in a hagiography that whitewashes el-Sisi’s role in the military coup that brought him to power. The dictator’s sinister aide Mansour (Amr Waked) makes George an offer he simply cannot refuse.

George initially doesn’t realise how far Mansour will go to tame what he sees as a degenerate, traitorous lot of artists. I don’t see a contradiction between being an artist and a patriot, Mansour declares. George tries to wing it, but Mansour is watching him, his family, his lover and even his co-stars a little too...

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