The best Youssef Chahine’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Youssef Chahine’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Youssef Chahine.
Cairo Station
7.5/10
Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed by Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.
The Story of Film: An Odyssey
8.4/10
The story of international cinema told through the history of cinematic innovation. Covering six continents and 12 decades, showing how film-makers are influenced both by the historical events of their times, and by each other.
Trio
Trio is a cinematic series of filmed portraits that shows, in a single large, fixed and silent shot of 3 minutes and 20 seconds, three people free to do what they want.
Alexandria, Again and Forever
6.5/10
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 handsome actor he discovered and cast as his alter-ego in parts one and two of The Alexandria Trilogy, Yehia pressures Amr to star in various film projects that change even as Yehia's perception of the young actor begins to change. He first casts Amr as Hamlet, which the actor deems too demanding for his talents, then as the lead in a musical biopic of demigod Alexander the Great, who founded the city of Alexandria in 332 B.C.
Women Who Loved Cinema
6.8/10
Six strong-willed women whose adventurous streak changed the face of film industry in early twentieth century Egypt – a time when the country was, despite the liberal ripples, still steeped in conservative tradition. The film shows how these women, different as they were in class and social background, broke taboos and dismissed conventional wisdom to fulfill their overpowering passion for filmmaking. Women Who Loved Cinema takes us to the past and brings us, seamlessly, to the present day. Aziza ... Fatema ... Behidja ... Amina ... Assia … Mary... theirs is a story that will remain indelibly etched in the memory of Egyptian cinema.
Arab Camera
7.9/10
Focusing on key Arab films produced in the last 20 years. Férid Boughedir traces the development of the film-makers' concern to produce more socially aware cinema. Themes include the issue of Palestinian homeland rights and the nature of Arab identity. The film-makers also share a desire to develop a strong poetic tradition.
The Sixth Day
7/10
Egypt, 1947: in the midst of a cholera outbreak. A washerwoman tries to take care of her family, while at the same time resisting the advances of a charming suitor who's half her age.
Dawn of a New Day
7/10
The story of a 40-year-old married woman who has fallen into idleness and does not know how to approach the revolutionary events in her country. She finds a new meaning in life when she falls in love with an aspiring young student. “I shot FAGR YOM GUEDID in 1964. I count it among my best films and still stand by it completely. It is about the class whose assets were nationalized after the 1952 revolution. I explored the question of whether this class still had a place in Egyptian society.”
Close to Kiarostami
A documentary that focuses on Abbas Kiarostami's cinematic philosophy talking to himself and other figures, and also seeks the opinion about his works both inside and outside his homeland.
