LONDON: Debutant director Reem Saleh’s “What Comes Around” is a captivating but flawed portrait of the residents of Cairo’s Rod El-Farag slum.

The feature-length documentary examines the minutiae of grinding poverty, bringing a rare focus to some of the millions of Egyptians all but forgotten by the state.

Shot over six years, the Lebanese filmmaker returns to the Cairo neighborhood where her mother was born before emigrating to Beirut as an adult.

Such upward mobility is rare for the slum’s residents, whose lives are largely confined to Rod El-Farag’s dilapidated alleys and passageways beside Cairo’s filth-strewn railway tracks.

The film centers around the credit union — or Al Gami’ya — formed by 10 residents. Each week they contribute a few pounds, with the money periodically distributed to whoever is most in need.

Five union members feature. Nagwa, a divorced mother, says the union will pay for her son’s nursery, while another family matriarch earmarks her windfall for her son’s wedding.

Saleh lets the slum’s inhabitants tell their own story, providing no narration or direct questions to the film’s protagonists.

That is both a strength and a weakness of the film, with many questions left unanswered, such as the union’s true benefits: If everyone receives a pay out, do members just get back the money they paid in?

Also no scenes are dated, so viewers must guess how much time elapsed since seeing each protagonist.

The footage from the slum’s crumbling squalor is unobtrusive, and residents rarely seem self-conscious about the camera’s gaze, their indefatigable spirit and warmth for one another undimmed by poverty.

The women of Rod El-Farag are heroic. Working gruelling hours as well as caring for their children and husbands, the daily grind is unrelenting.

The slum’s men often seem lazy and irresponsible. One son divorces his wife a week after getting married, the family having used the union’s money to stage a lavish celebration.

Another man divorces his wife on three separate occasions, while middle-aged Adel deserts his family entirely, complaining about his wife’s shoddy housework after she began working because he was sick.

While imperfect, “What Comes Around” is compelling viewing, vividly showing the lives of people usually reduced to mere statistics. For that, Saleh deserves immense praise.