Part of CHAHINE: THE RESTORATION PROJECT

The story is adapted from a novel by Andre Gide and depicts a family going through a fatal crisis. Ali Madbouli, a former social activist who went on to marry the daughter of a wealthy contractor with lucrative government construction deals, returns home to his family after ten years in prison. Ali has been imprisoned for his involvement in a cost – cutting scheme that had resulted in the collapse of one of its buildings. But the Ali who returns is no longer the well – loved man they remember, which disappoints everyone, including his nephew, his former lover, and the workers in his father’s factory, toward whom he assumes the role of yet another technocrat with no genuine regard for their demands and grievances. The Madbouli family well – to – do, owning a large factory, a movie theater, and vast lands. His aging father Muhammed has chosen to run a farm and tries to stay away from the entire business. He is grandfatherly and sincere – a weak figure who had once hoped to become an artist but was eventually forced to take on the family business. Ali’s mother is a manipulative figure who meddles in everyone’s life.