CAIRO — "Clash," a highly acclaimed film by Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, was finally released in cinemas around Egypt last week. The movie, which covers confrontations between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and state forces following the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, has been a topic of heated controversy among Egyptians since it first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

"'Clash' carries deep-seated humanistic meanings, without bias to any particular faction," said Rana al-Gami’i after viewing the movie on the first day of its Egyptian release at a cinema in the Giza governorate. The movie-goer in her 20s told Al-Monitor, "The film isn’t merely about an incident in a police transport vehicle, as some erroneously believe."

On Aug. 18, 2013, following the arrest of dozens during the dispersal of pro-Brotherhood protests at Rabia al-Adawiya and Nahda squares, 37 Egyptian protesters died inside a police vehicle outside the Abu-Zaabal prison. They died as a result of being suffocated by gas after being held for six hours inside the police transport vehicle.

Gami’i said "Clash" tried to express the crisis of political polarization that Egypt has experienced since the June 30 Revolution, adding that it gave voice to all the political orientations inside the police van, but it "wasn't biased in favor of any particular faction." At the same time, she believes that Diab succeeded in changing what she said was a stereotype in Egyptian cinema of depicting everything Islamic as being Muslim Brotherhood-related.