“We will no longer defend, we will attack!” Egyptian Lt. Col. Nour El-Din declares in one of the most compelling scenes in “Al-Mamar” (The Passage), a new movie that takes up the War of Attrition in the aftermath of Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war against Israel. The protagonist Nour El-Din is referring to the change in strategy by the Egyptian army after Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula.

This line can also be considered a reflection of the change in strategy by Egyptian filmmakers taking on Egyptian-Israeli relations after “normalization” between the two countries. Egyptian cineastes have mostly steered clear of the Egypt-Israeli conflict over the Sinai in the last 15 years, ever since“ Youm al-Karama” (Day of Dignity) in 2004. 

With a budget exceeding 60 million Egyptian pounds ($3.6 million), “The Passage” is the most expensive Egyptian cinema production to date. The storyline of “The Passage” begins on June 4, 1967, the day before the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war, and tells the story of the defeat of Nour El-Din's battalion, one of many Egyptian defeats in the Sinai. It then highlights Nour El-Din’s efforts to rebuild and retrain his battalion so that he can execute a commando operation inside Israeli army camps in Sinai during the War of Attrition (1967-70). The “passage” refers to the battalion crossing behind enemy lines to destroy the largest Israeli army camp in Sinai and unexpectedly find Egyptian POWs in the camp.

The film, in sync with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s effort to revive Egyptian patriotism, has been seen by more than a million Egyptians. According to Elcinema.com, an Egyptian film database, as of Aug. 14, "The Passage" had taken in around 73.6 million Egyptian pounds ($4.4 million) after 10 weeks in theaters, putting it in second place for the most revenue generated in the history of Egyptian cinema.