As conservatism and religious observance have come to define public life more and more over the past three decades in Cairo, the dimly-lit, sinuous passageways and dark corners of the city’s aquarium have become favoured meeting spots for amorous couples looking to evade the gaze of passers-by. The Aquarium follows the everyday lives of two people who are destined to meet in this makeshift love nest: Youssef el-Nadi, an anesthesiologist who delights in taking in his drowsy patients’ revelatory mumblings; and Laila Bakr, a late-night radio psychologist. Opening with a stunningly premonitory sequence—one of Laila’s callers divulging his angst over a travelling shot of Talat Harb Square, a stone’s throw from the site of the 2011 revolution—The Aquarium is a poetic and complex exploration of a repressive culture’s politics of desire, denial and alienation.