Movies: Youssef Chahine

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the...

Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks....

The first Sultan of Egypt and Syria leads the Muslim military campaign against the invading Christians from Europe during the Third Crusade....

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds,...

Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is ac...

A wealthy landlord floods and destroys a village on purpose to prevent the people living there from making a profit off their crops. What he doesn't know is that his own daughter, Amal, is in love with Ahmed, a young man from the village....

Set in 1933, the mayor informs the peasants that the share of irrigation of their land will be split equally between them and feudal lord Mahmoud Bey. The peasants send Mohamed Effendi to submit a petition to the government. Mahmoud Bey then proposes...

Ragab, a poor sailor, returns home to Alexandria after three years of absence, during which he tried to save money to marry his one true love, Hamedah. But there's trouble on the harbor, and with an old friend....

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,...

In the 12th century's Andalusia lives Ibn Rushd a prominent Islamic philosopher with his wife Zeinab and daughter Salma. The principality is ruled by Khalifa ElMansour who has two sons, ElNasser, an intellectual that likes Ibn Rush and is in love wit...

After we last see him in "Alexandria, Why?" Egyptian filmmaker Yehia Mourad is in his thirties, and successful in his work, he has grown distant from his wife and children and suffers a symbolic blockage of the heart while shooting the final scenes of...

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 g...

1950 Cairo, Amin is a simple employee who lives with his family of three, his wife Zahira, son Nabil and daughter Hoda. Amin’s friend Mabrouk convinces Amin to invest his life savings in a project, which he promises, will get him rich. Amin agrees bu...

Djamila, a young Algerian woman living with her brother Hadi and her uncle Mustafa in the Casbah district of Algiers under the French occupation of Algeria, sees the full extent of injustice, tyranny and cruelty on his compatriots by French soldiers....

Hatem is a corrupt police officer, who loves his neighbor Nour, who in turn loves the prosecutor, Sherif. Hatem tries to win Nour’s attention even if by force....

This big-budget historical epic from acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine features a crazed turn by Patrice Chereau as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, an Egyptian-French co-production, deals with Napoleon's occupation of Alexandria and its effec...

When a free-spirited sailor is found murdered, his twin brother, a famous novelist, is the prime suspect. Investigators uncover a possible liaison between the dead sailor and the writer's wife, and also learn that Sayed's successful fictions owed muc...

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. Trouble a...

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". Obsessed with Amr, the hand...

The authorities summon many young men for forced labor in the Suez Canal, so Metwally leaves his sister Shafiqa alone with their old grandfather, whereupon Shafiqa is forced to succumb to the temptations of Diab, the district chief's son. As their si...