A graffiti artist turned writer and filmmaker, Tarik Saleh made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, when he won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for his political thriller The Nile Hilton Incident. After directing episodes of Westworld and Ray Donovan, as well as an action thriller starring Chris Pine and Ben Foster (The Contractor), the son of a Swedish mother and an Egyptian father went back to writing and directing his own script Boy from Heaven, a spy thriller set inside the most prestigious religious university in Cairo. It won the Best Screenplay award in Cannes this year and is now Sweden’s entry for Academy Award consideration. Tarik Saleh, who was born and raised in Sweden, talked to us at the Zurich Film Festival (Switzerland) where the film played in the #MyReligion section, about bringing the worlds of a Muslim believer and a western film genre together.

At the heart of Boy from Heaven is a young student who gets caught up in the battle for religious succession and state power after his university’s Grand Imam dies. Where did the inspiration for Boy from Heaven come from?

There were two big influences: I was re-reading Umberto Eco’s In the Name of the Rose because I was so affected by it when I read it as a teenager. I understood it on a whole different level reading it now as a grown up and I started to play this game in my head: What would a version of this be in the Islamic world? I wanted to write it as a novel, but my producer insisted it had to be a film. So I wrote a script. Everything was ready and budgeted when Covid happened, and we had to postpone the shooting. And then John le Carré died. He is one of my biggest writing influences. So I re-read his books and realized, there is a mistake in the storytelling of my script and I had to rewrite it which I did.

The film takes place mostly in the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. What role does Al-Azhar play in Egypt and the larger culture?

Al-Azhar was built by the Fatimids, a sect within Shia muslims, in the 990s. They built it to be the center of knowledge of Islam. It was very progressive in its ideas. People were going to be able to come, whether they were poor or rich. When Saladin invaded Egypt he right away turned Al-Azhar into a Sunni institution. Sunni Islam doesn’t have a clear sense of authority – you don’t have the ayatollah or a pope. The authority comes from knowledge. Because Al-Azhar had extracted so much knowledge about Islam, the principal of the institution who is called Sheikh Al-Azhar or the Grand Imam, has a lot of informal power. And throughout the centuries, he becomes the biggest authority in Sunni Islam.

Your grandfather went to Al-Azhar. What did he tell you about it?

He was very open minded. He said to me that if the prophet would have been alive, he would have forbidden the pilgrimage to Mecca because it’s just a circus. The Sheikh Al-Azhar at the time visited Paris and said: I went to Paris and saw Islam without Muslims. I come back and I see Muslims without Islam. And Islam, of course, means peace. So he basically meant that it’s not enough that you call yourself a Muslim. It was an openness at that time that I think my grandfather was a part of. The biggest threat against Al-Azhar was never the government, but television and the Internet, because all of a sudden someone in a cellar can start to preach and he gets 40 million views. And then all of a sudden, Al-Azhar is not the institution everyone listens to. It’s this YouTube Imam or this television Imam.

The Egyptian government apparently thinks that you are a threat, too. Is it true that you are banned from the country?

Well, after I did The Nile Hilton Incident they went on TV and said I would be arrested if I came to Egypt because I insulted the country. Which is strange because the film takes place before the revolution, but it was a clear sign the old guard is back. That’s why I originally thought I would write Boy from Heaven as a novel, not a screenplay.

Where did you end up filming?

We were going to build Al-Azhar in Morocco – for a third of its cost and afterwards they would rent it out to Americans for their war films. But when COVID happened, Morocco closed down and eventually we went to the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, which is one of the greatest Islamic architectural accomplishments. The religious council had to read and accept the script. Which I thought they would because it is not disrespectful.

The script won the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival. What was that like for you?

That was a very happy moment. Costa-Gavras sat in front of me and said “great film”. I felt like I had been touched by God! I was holding the price like a newborn baby backstage when the Dardenne brothers tapped me on my shoulder and said The Nile Hilton Incident was very dear to them. Getting this reaction from my heroes was better than the award because these are people that I admire. That they have seen my films, let alone that they say they like it, is incredible. I’m trying to be in their tradition of filmmaking.

Costa-Gavras says his films are not political, because ultimately all films are political. What is your take on that?

I couldn’t agree with him more. I am going to steal exactly what he said there. For me, everything is political. Women know everything is political. Their body is fought over to control them. Even the most stupid film is political, because they are there to dumb you down, so you don’t ask questions.

You worked in Hollywood as well, directing episodes of Westworld and Ray Donovan, and the action thriller The Contractor starring Chris Pine and Ben Foster. What was the experience like?

It’s a strange thing because I don’t like directing. I like to write; I like to edit. Directing is a job for me and a struggle. When I have written a script, I hire myself as a director because I can hold myself hostage [for quality control]. The unfortunate thing is that in the process, I have become a good director. And the problem with that is that people then come to me and say: Do you want to direct this? I have children and have to pay the rent, but I also have to have integrity. And integrity is totally connected to economics. So I tried to choose very carefully because I cannot be cynical. I think cynicism is the most dangerous trait for an artist to have. I think you have to love the characters you’re telling the story about and you have to care. You are on the side of humanity, and you try to understand what happens to the individual little human being when the system is moving. So for me, working in Hollywood and in that big system, you learn a lot. There are a lot of great filmmakers and, of course, the actors are really good, but the empire is falling apart in front of our eyes. I don’t put any judgement on it. There will be another empire and I’m sure that that empire will not be nicer. It will also be someone who wants to influence everyone.

Boy from Heaven is the Swedish entry for Academy Award consideration. How do you think the film will be perceived in the US?

I think the film will have a difficult time in America. The problem with Islam and Hollywood and America is that the propaganda has been going on for so long. It is a little bit like trying to tell a story about Jewish people talking about religion and philosophy in 1938s Germany. Will that work in the cinemas in Germany when the [Nazi] propaganda is at an all-time high? Heads of studios and journalists alike have told me they feel unsettled by the film, because they don’t know what’s true. Well, it’s fiction. What else is there to know? I am not doing educational films about Islam. People have been told that Muslims are not humans. The main character is a believer and not evil and I know that’s taking a big risk.