Set in the suburbs of Cairo in the late 1930s, the story follows a middle-class Egyptian family grappling with the hardships of life after the death of their father, their sole breadwinner. The mother and her four children—three brothers and their sister, Nefisah—struggle to avoid slipping into poverty. They all go in different directions which aren't exactly good.
An athletic young man falls for a beautiful woman with a troubled brother. Handsome Yehia (Hafez) may come from a troubled background, but he's always strived to make the best of his life. When Yehia falls for the beautiful Samia (Iman), he believes he has finally found the woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. Trouble soon arises, however, when Samia's delinquent stepbrother begins doing everything in his power to sabotage the couple's relationship.
In the blasting heat of a Friday afternoon in Cairo, a group of people – among them a movie star, a thief, a madman, a cook and a pregnant woman – find themselves trapped in an elevator for 12 hours.
