The film was released during Egypt's pan-Arab Nasserist era, when the culmination of pan-Arab sentiment allowed filmmakers like Chahine to take on large-scale production of projects that would positively portray revolutionary Arab leaders like Nasser. With the government's signing of the nonalignment pact of 1955, the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, and the Algerian revolution, the context allowed Chahine to contribute to the cultivation of the indigenous Third Worldist, anti-colonial rhetoric displayed in the film.