Youssef Chahine
Youssef Chahine (born in Alexandria, Egypt, 1926) started studying in a friars' school and then turned to Victoria College until High School Certificate. After one year at the University of Alexandria, he moved to the U.S. and spent two years at the Pasadena Play House, taking... Read full bio →
Alexandrie... New York
An enthralling look at the relationship between America and the Arab World from an Arab perspective. It tells the story of Yehia, a renowned Egyptian filmmaker whose life has been shaped by a pair of disrupted love affairs, one with an American woman named Ginger, the other with America itself.
11'09''01 - September 11
11 directors show their view on the terrorist attacks on the world trade center in New York.
Skoot hansawwar
A rollicking paean to the Hollywood and Bollywood musicals of yesteryear.
El Akhar
Adam is the son of a wealthy Egyptian-American family who is studying at UCLA and returns home for a brief vacation. Upon his arrival he meets beautiful reporter Hanane, with whom he begins an intense love affair, and eventually they marry.
Al-massir
No amount of squabbling and bickering can prevent a worldly playboy and a prim and prudish woman from falling in love.
Al-mohager
The biblical tale of Joseph is told from an Egyptian perspective in this interesting character study. In this film, Joseph is called Ram. Ram, tired of his family's backward superstitious life, and tired of being picked on by his brothers, wants to go to Egypt to study agriculture.
Iskanderija, kaman oue kaman
Set in 1987 against the backdrop of a hunger strike by the Egyptian film industry, Chahine himself steps in to play Yehia, the famed Egyptian director whose life is chronicled in "Alexandria, Why?" and "An Egyptian Story".
Hadduta misrija
During heart surgery, a filmmaker imagines his childhood self on trial for killing his adult self, revealing his ambitions, identity struggles, and ties to revolutionary Egypt.
Iskandariya..Leah?
Amid the poverty, death, and suffering caused by World War II, 18-year-old Yehia retreats into a private world of fantasy and longing. Obsessed with Hollywood, he dreams of studying filmmaking in America but struggles to pursue his dream, given the constraints of his life in the middle class and the horrors of war.
Awdat al ibn al dal
Freed after spending years in prison, an activist's homecoming turns into a dark affair as his disillusion clashes with his family's expectations. Demonstrating Chahine’s eclecticism, this is an elegant melodrama, exuberant musical, layered allegory, and profound portrait of personal and political disillusionment.
Al-asfour
Set shortly before and during the Six Day War in June of 1967, The Sparrow follows a young police officer stationed in a small village in Upper Egypt whose inhabitants suffer from the harassment of a corrupt businessman.
Rimal min dhahab
Tarek loves his cousin Zubaida and travels to Spain to work in bullfighting under a pseudonym. Zubaida comes to Spain in search of her lover, but despite his pleas for her to return to Morocco, she continues to follow him.