In the year 1934, a rich Armenian trader built the imposing Ÿacoubian Building in the best European style of architecture, in the very heart of Cairo, with the idea of aggregating luxury and comfort in one single space. Today, the story of the building is very different, and this is what we witness most clearly through the fascinating narrative of the film "The Yacoubian Building", by Marwan Hamed, a saga described as the most expensive production in Egyptian cinema of all time - US$4 million - almost nothing on U.S. film standards. But the results are very good for the melodramatic standards of the cinema of the Arab world. As could only be, in the best style of film from the Middle East, there are also musical items in "Yacoubian Building", but performed here with sophistication. The narrative follows along with the drama of several characters wending their way through the building today. One mourns the decadence of the building and associates this with a decline in Egyptian social culture itself. The film, courageously, goes even further. In the footsteps of several characters, we are introduced to an unemployed youth whose despair finds support in radical moslems. In a short while he is transformed into an angry agitator, imprisoned and tortured by the political police - one more of the numberless cycles of terrorism in the region, seen from his point of view. "La Vie en Rose" (one of the songs in the film) lends a false farse-like appearance to the drama that unfolds on other planes, no less conflicting. An aged roué insists on flirting with seemingly innocent youngsters. All of the stories have unforeseeable reverses, including that of a homosexual exposing himself dangerously in a condition that is officially condemned, to woo partners. The full afresco of Egyptian society, with all the shades of suffering, the condition of women in the most diverse social classes, comes from the novel of the same name, written by Alaa Al Aswani, now in its 14th edition. The support to this excellent adaptation to cinema is from a great cast of actors with no sentimentality or forced acting as a form of popular appeal. Among this group of highly experienced Egyptian actors, most outstanding is Adel Imam, who plays the roué playboy. One of the producers of the film, Imad Adee, present at the 56th Berlin Festival where "The Yacoubian Building" was presented in the Panorama section, speaks enthusiastically about the success of "Yacoubian Building" and announces his next super-production of US$7 million in the Berlin edition of the U.S. Variety magazine: an outline of the profile of Osama Bin Laden. He tells in advance what the line of the new film is to be: "Bin Laden`s first victims were not the West and Christians, but the Arabs, and the Moslems." Translation into English: Clare Elizabeth Charity ( clarecharity@uol.com.br )