The Rebel of Egyptian Cinema (Copyright, Lebanese Imprints on the Twentieth Century, Volume I, Asma Freiha and Viviane Ghanem, 2006)

In Photo: Youssef Chahine and Luc Besson at the 50th Cannes Film Festival

A road in Zahleh, the capital city of the Bekaa region from which Youssef Chahine's family hails, has borne his name since 2001. He often returns to spend his summers in the family home that his father Adib Sawaya, a reputed lawyer, left in 1920 when he immigrated to Egypt.
Born Gibran Sawaya in Alexandria in 1926, he attended the renowned Victoria College before heading off for California to study cinema and theatre at the Pasadena Playhouse.

His dream then was to star and dance in musicals, just like his idol Gene Kelly.

He graduated from that famous American institution in 1948 and returned to Egypt to work with the Italian director; Gianni Vernuccio. He began his own career as a director in 1950 at the age of twenty-four, with a first film entitled Baba Amin.

International recognition came with Bab el Hadid (Cairo Station), which although now regarded as one of the world's great classics shocked audiences when it first appeared in 1958.

He has directed over forty films and won many international awards, including the Silver Bear, given to him by the Grand Jury of the Berlin Festival for his movie Iskandaryya leh? (Alexandria, Why?), which appeared in 1978.

It was Youssef Chahine who gave his friend Michel Chalhoub, a.k.a. Omar Sharif, his first role in a film fil-Wadi ( A Story in the Valley), which appeared in 1953. He founded his own production company for both cinema and theatre in Cairo and named it Misr International.

A controversial figure with radical ideas, he is known as the rebel of Egyptian and Arab cinema: his movie The Immigrant, based on the story from the Bible of Joseph and his son Jacob, saw him banned twice, in 1994 by Islamic religious authorities and in 1995 by Coptic religious authorities...

Chahine will always continue the fight so that freedom of expression may thrive in Arabic cinema.

June 21st, 2008 - Youssef Chahine is in a Coma, and his health is in risk.

The 82-year-old Egyptian International director Youssef Chahine, died on Sunday 27. 07.08 at the Armed Forces hospital in Cairo.

Films

1950 - Baba Amin (Director)
1951 - Ibn an Nil (Son of the Nile) (Director)
1953 - Nisa' bila rijal (Women without Men) (Director)
1953 - Siraa fil-Wadi (A Story in the Valley) (Director)
1954 - Shaitan as sahra (The Desert's Devil) (Director)
1956 - Siraa fil Mina (A Story in the Port) (Director)
1957 - Inta ya habibi (You, My love) (Director)
1958 - Bab al hadid (Cairo Station) (Actor and director)
1958 - Gamila al gasairya (Gamila the Algerian) (Director)
1963 - A Nasser Salah ad Din (Saladin) (Director)
1964 - Fagr yom gadid (Dawn of a New Day) (Director)
1965 - Bayya' al Khawatem (The Ring Seller) (Director)
1968 - 1972 - An nass wal Nil (People and the Nile) (Director)
1969 - Al ard (The Earth) (Director)
1970 - Al Ikhtiyar (The Choice) (Director)
1973 - Al ousfour (The Sparrow) (Director), first banned in May 1973 then awarded Egypt's highest cultural distinction in December of the same year.
1976 - Awdat al ibn addal (The Return of the Prodigal Son) (Director)
1978 - Iskandaria leh (Alexandria, Why?) (Producer, director and writer)
1982 - Adhkira (Memory) (Director)
1985 - Adieu Bonaparte (Producer, director and writer)
1986 - The Sixth Day (Director)
1086 - Patrice Chereau, the Backside of the Setting, directed by Arnaud Sélignac (Actor)
1988 - Sarikat Sayfeya (Summer Thefts) (Producer)
1989 - L'après Octobre (Actor)
1990 - Alexandria, Again and Forever (Actor, writer and director)
1991 - Cairo (documentary narrated by Youssef Chahine) (Director)
1992 - Caligula, play by Albert Camus, directed by Youssef Chahine and produced at the Comédie-Française in Paris
1994 - Al Mouhager (The Immigrant) (Director and writer)
1995 - Light and Company (Director)
1997 - The Destiny (Director)
1998 - The Other (Director)
2001 - Silence... We are filming (Director and writer)
2002 - The Anger (Director)
2002 - 11.09.01: September 11, directed by Samira Makhmalbaf (writer)
2003 - Alexandria... New York (Director and writer)
2004 - The Raging Heart (Director)
2007 - To each his cinema (Director)
2008 - Heya Fawda (Director)