A few days before the shooting in Egypt for The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) was supposed to take place, director Tarik Saleh was publicly removed from the country and told not to come back. As a result, that movie was shot in Casablanca, Morocco.
As he's still persona non grata in Egypt, he couldn't shoot Garoto dos Céus (2022) there, thus despite being set in Cairo, the film was actually shot in Istanbul, Turkey, mostly in the Süleymanye mosque.
Director Tarik Saleh was first inspired to make this movie after re-reading Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, and wondered whether making a similar story in the Muslim context was even possible. Once he entertained this thought, he couldn't let go and felt he had to do it.
Official submission of Sweden for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 95th Academy Awards in 2023.
Director Tarik Saleh's grandfather came from a poor village in the Nile delta and was accepted at the Al-Azhar university, and chose to make his movie talk about the price to pay when quickly moving from a poor and remote area to the big city.