"Climbing to the Bottom" was based on the true story of a spy named Heba Selim who worked for the Mossad along with her fiance where both of them provided the Israelis with Egypt's military secrets in the post-1967 war era. Saleh Morsi's adaptation of the real events was superb as viewers were able to understand the motives for the ambitious Abla Kamel to commit treason against her country in order to seek a better life in France. One of the most powerful lines in the film was mentioned by the Intelligence Officer (played by actor Mahmoud Yassine) who shows Abla - after her arrest at a Tunisian airport - an aerial view of the Pyramids and the Nile River as if he was giving her a lecture on the history of the country that she had betrayed.