[4] The rise of the original realism in the 1950s called for filmmaking that reflected the daily life of the indigenous Egyptian population, paying attention to the choice of the “simple man” from the lower social class and portraying him as the protagonist.

Daoud Abdel Sayed's "The Search for Sayid Marzuq" is a police film that attempts to look at the issue of citizenship as "measured along the malfunctions of the modern nation-state".

[5] A newsletter article of the Middle East Studies Program issued by the American University in Cairo tells the story of the film and alludes to the fact that Daoud Abdel Sayed is arguing, through the hero's eyes, that reality has changed since the early 1970s as a result of the pressure imposed on countries such as Egypt to “modernise.” The account of the film in this publication reads as follows: Yusuf, a bachelor and white-collar wakes up late one day and rushes to work only to find out that it is a holiday.

He meets different odd people, among others an organ grinder, a mysterious young woman, a prostitute and last not least, Sayyid Marzuq, a rich business man who invites him in order to tell him his story.

Since that moment Yusuf flees through the city with the police in hot pursuit, who does not stop chasing him even after the car's owner has been found and the error cleared up.

The chase lasts a whole exhausting night and has no logical explanation, the same applies to Yusuf's antipode, Marzuq, who appears and disappears frequently, comforts him but leaves him a short while later to his pursuers.