Director, Pioneer, and Godfather of Egyptian Cinema: Remembering Youssef Chahine

July 29, 2008 – 7:59 pm

Earlier this week, the Arab film industry lost one of its foremost figures, as the renowned Egyptian director, Youssef Chahine passed away in Cairo at the age of 82, following a brain haemorrhage.

Born on 25 January, 1926 to a Christian family in Alexandria, his father was an attorney of Lebanese origin, while his mother was Greek.

Growing up, the pentalingual Chahine home was as cosmopolitan as the city in which it rested, although as Chahine later joked, as with other Alexandrines, he failed to master any of the languages completely.

After studying engineering at Alexandria University for one year, Chahine convinced his parents to allow him to pursue his interest in acting through studying in Hollywood, where he passed the years 1946 to 1948 at the Pasadena Playhouse on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

On his return to Egypt, he entered the film industry after embarking on apprentice work with the Italian documentary film-maker, Gianni Vernuccio, and cinematographer, Alvisi Orfanelli, the latter of whom introduced Chahine to the major production companies of the late 1940s.

Orfanelli subsequently assisted in Chahine’s early films, Ibn el-Nil (Son of the Nile) in 1951, Nisa Bila Rigal (Women Without Men) in 1953, and Bab El Haded (Cairo Station) in 1958.

Already a resident of the movie hub of the Middle East – Egypt has been a steady source of movies since the 1930s – Chahine commenced his first film, Baba Amine (Father Amine) in 1950.

Nevertheless, it was his second film, Ibn el-Nil that catapulted him to success as the movie’s début at the 1951 Venice Film Festival drew more crowds than anticipated due to a sudden turn of meteorological fortune.

Caught in a flash rainstorm, festival goers thronged into his showing in gowns and bikinis alike, and discovered a cinematic revelation that would seal the fate of Chahine’s reputation in the movie industry.

With a directing career spanning 58 years, Chahine’s work inevitably has challenged as many boundaries as it has garnered awards. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature, current affairs, egypt | Comments (0)

The Woman’s Chalice

July 27, 2008 – 8:27 pm

You see a woman holding a chalice, and think, “she looks proud.”

They say that a chalice is the woman’s weapon, or her gift.

The gift she brings to the lost traveler, burning her bare feet on the sands.

The weapon she bears upward with a steady hand, her cloak on the wind like a standard.

And what you do not know

Is that she squeezed herself for you, drop by ruby drop,

Into her chalice.

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature, romance | Comments (0)

Qahwa Sada at the Egyptian National Theatre Festival

July 21, 2008 – 9:00 pm

The annual Egyptian National Theatre Festival has ended on the 16th of this month and out of the 45 plays on show during its 11 days one play in particular attracted the biggest number of critical reviews all of which have been very positive, this play is Qahwa Sada (i.e. black coffee).

In Egypt black coffee is strongly linked to mourning. After a funeral people who come to offer their condolences are given black coffee to drink, and it is to this tradition that the play refers. What the play mourns is everything that many Egyptians lament the disappearance of, from the lack of tightly knit families to the deterioration in the economy and the degeneration of pop culture.

So many positive reviews and so many friends of mine recommended Qahwa Sada that my expectations were very high and I became obsessed with the idea of attending the play. However, when I finally managed to see it (after an hour of standing in the ticket line and arguing with “organizers” who allowed late comers to enter at the front of the line) I was very disappointed by what I saw. Though the idea and execution of the play was, by Egyptian performed arts’ standards, above average, it was still mediocre by international standards. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature, egypt | Comments (0)

On the Wings of Swans

July 14, 2008 – 9:23 pm

On the wings of swans I came, my love, On the wings of swans I came.
With my beating pomegranate heart, In my outstretched hand.

But the river’s dry in the vale, my love, With not a drop to drink.
In the desert the starlight stabs the sky, And dead water sighs in the sea.

You wrung the necks of my swans, my love, You picked clean their fair white breasts.
I cannot find my way back, my love, There’s no one to carry me.

Your tables are set for a feast, my love, And your stone halls are bright.
So stretch out your gentle hand, my love, And take this pomegranate heart.

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature | Comments (0)

Motorcycle Diaries Part XVI

July 4, 2008 – 3:11 pm

Last summer, when Kate and Gerry McCann were granted an audience with the Pope to pray for their missing daughter, Madeleine, that meeting in the Vatican sparked a nagging train of thought in my mind that is refusing to slow down with time, threatening to undermine the entire foundations of my faith.

The upheaval in my head was about the human tendency which we all share when in dire times of trouble: to plead for salvation to what is supposed to be an omnipotent force that holds our fate in its hands – without ever questioning the meaning and purpose of this instinctive exercise. Why, the question kept haunting me, do believers need to implore God for an intervention to save an innocent little girl like Madeleine, if they believe that He has the power to do it anyway.

Does a most merciful father need us immortals to beg him to do the right thing? Does He need the Pope to intermediate to end a grief-stricken family’s plight?

This dilemma has no comfortable answer for someone like me who has reached his belief in a Creator through an arduous process of rational thinking and reasoning rather than by indoctrinated fear of torture in hell fire. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in current affairs, entertainment, humor, islam, jordan, religion | Comments (0)