Kareema Abd el-Moniem, an Egyptian in her 30s, decided that she did not want to marry without being in love with her future husband. After a failed engagement, she nonetheless clung to the dream of becoming a mother. She never dreamed that she would see what she was experiencing on the big screen.

One day on Facebook, Moniem came across a video of an Egyptian woman with whom she could relate. The unmarried woman, with her face concealed, was looking for a paid sperm donor so she could have a child without getting married. Moniem later discovered that the video was a promotional piece for the film “Bashtery Raggel” ("Buying a Man"), which was released in Egyptian cinemas Feb. 14, starring Nelly Kareem and Mohamed Mamdouh and directed by Mohamed Aly.

In the film, character Sherihan Nour el-Deen has turned 35 and is no longer interested in marriage after having been unsuccessful in finding lasting love. She therefore turns to Facebook to find a man to marry, so she can use his sperm for in vitro fertilization treatments. In its second week, “Bashtery Ragel” rose to first place at the box office, bringing in 2,177,263 Egyptian pounds ($133,494). 

“The theme of the film is shocking to [Egyptian] society,” Inas Lotfy, the film's screenwriter, told Al-Monitor. “It, however, expresses [the desire] of every woman who has turned 30 unmarried. This is when she feels she wants to be a mother and, at the same time, rejects the idea of marrying merely for the sake of avoiding being a ‘spinster.’”