Set in a police truck, a group of demonstrators from across the divisions in Egyptian society are forced together through a series of violent protests in Cairo following the events of June 2013.

Clash is a tense , inspiring, and heartbreaking examination of humanity. When two warring groups of people end up confined in the back of a police wagon, the best and worst in all of them come out. Two American members of the Associated Press are in Egypt covering the unrest following the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi. The two men, a reporter and a photographer both originally born in Egypt, are arrested when they are thought to be sympathetic to Morsi party, The Muslim Brotherhood (MB). They are ushered in to the back of the wagon with their passports, phones, and cameras are confiscated. 

However the reporter manages to hold on to his smartwatch. He holds it up to the window trying to get the signal from his phone to call the american embassy. As he does this a group of anti-Morsi protesters mistake his actions as aggressive as they think he is pointing something at them. They begin throw rocks at the windows of the truck. The police assume they are also MBs and throw them in with the reporters. The group tries to tell the police they are not MBs but to no avail. 

As the tuck is moved through the city, the truck is soon surrounded by an MB protest. Several members of the mob are rounded up into three paddy wagons, including the one holding the reporters and the anti-Morsis. At once the two groups are at odds. The initial fighting is soon broken up as the groups organize themselves. Each fuming about the other. However, it’s not long before circumstances lead theses detainees to let their politics fall to the side as their humanity comes to the forefront. Throughout everything, the reporter uses the camera on his smartwatch to capture not only the inhumane conditions but the coming together of these two groups. 

Writer/director Mohamed Diab, in his second outing, does an outstanding job of bringing you into the conflict between members of these two opposing groups without taking a particular side. Neither group is painted as “the bad guys” except in the eyes of the other group. For a film set entirely in the back of a police wagon, the film has a remarkably large cast of principals and extras. At a number of moments the group of detainees is trapped not only by the hot and cramped confines of the truck but also the throngs of protesters surrounding them.

Clash is filled with tense moments and a gut-wrenching ending that feels like something out of Night of the Living Dead. But at the same the film is inspiring as Diab shows how when things become difficult people are capable of  working together despite ideological differences.