Abstract

This paper will shed some light on the work of thegreat Arab and filmaker, Yūsuf Šahῑn (1926– 2008).His movies helped pave the way for the emergence ofmodern Egyptian cinema started in twenties of the20th century. The work of Yūsuf Šahῑnoriginated from bustling Alexandria has become amilestone in the development of cinema. Consideredone of the greatest Egyptian directors, he usesvarious film genres and shifts from direction todirection. Šahῑn shows the medieval and modern Arabworld. The history in his films is presented asmonumental. One of his greatest films,Al-Maṣῑr (Destiny) is about a12th-century philosopher from Andalusiawho would be known as the most important commentatorof Aristotle. Šahῑn shows modernity as a strugglefor existence, power and survival. He refers much tothese subjects in one of his most famous films,Jamila, about theAlgerian heroine during the national liberation warof Algeria against France. Yūsuf Šahῑn always hadsomething to say on the political and social issuesof the day. The best examples are fourgroundbreaking Egyptian films produced in theaftermath of the 1967 military defeat. In several ofhis films Yūsuf Šahῑn moves the subject of politics,analyzing the issue of power and social problems inEgypt and other countries. Yūsuf Šahῑn has developed– perhaps even introduced – the genre of filmautobiography as he presented a series of filmsabout Alexandria (the first was Iskandariyya… Lēh? Alexandria… Why?),based on his own memories from which colorfulpictures of the city and difficult dilemmas emerge.Formal experimentation became Yūsuf Šahῑn's majortrademark. In many of his movies he wove togetherhistorical footage, folk tale, surreal and farcicaltwists, dramatic psychological sequences and musicalnumbers.

Keywords: Yūsuf Šahῑn, modern Egyptian cinema

During fifty-seven years of directing, Yūsuf Šahῑn madeabout fifty films in which the greatest stars ofEgyptian cinema starred, like Dalida and OmarSharif, whom the director discovered in a Cairocafe, “and gave him his first acting role in Blazing sky (1953), as apeasant farm engineer fighting the injustices of afeudal landlord” (Bradshaw, 2008). He collaborated,among others, with Naḡῑb Maḥfūẓ.