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.

In his endeavour to recapture and defend the spirit of multicultural tolerance against the forces he saw undermining it — fundamentalism, dictatorship, censorship, and imperialism – he also courted controversy.

The first, Bab El Hadid, has proved a classic of Egyptian cinema, yet nevertheless shocked viewers both by the sympathy with which the “fallen woman” is depicted, and by the violent nature of her demise.

Al Asfour, (The Sparrow), in 1973, attacked Egyptian corruption and blamed it for the defeat in the Six Day War, and was banned by Sadat’s government. Written by Chahine in collaboration with Lofti el-Kholi, the film traces the familial and national divisions rife in society during the conflict between Israel and the United Arab Republic.

In 1994, an Islamist lawyer succeeded in getting a court to ban his film Al Mohager, (The Emigrant), in November 1994 due to the semblance of the plot to the story of Joseph, found in the Bible and Quran. The movie was subsequently banned for a second time in August 1995, on the grounds that it contravenes Islamic ruling on the depiction of prophets.

Chahine was then, a ground-breaker. As the first director to introduce art films to the Arab world, his cinematic triumphs spawned the genre “Chahinian” film, pieces often marked by his ability to render the plot not necessarily the main factor of success, but rather by enabling the mise-en-scène and the shocking reactions of all the different characters to occupy the viewer’s attention.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Chahine switched to an autobiographical style, recounting his childhood and American experiences through the Alexandria Trilogy: Iskanderiya…Lih? (Alexandria, Why?) in 1979, Hadduta Misriya, (An Egyptian Story) in 1982, and Iskanderiya Kaman w Kaman, (Alexandria Again and Forever) in 1989.

The first of the trilogy, Iskanderiya…Lih?, shattered cinematic taboos through the tales of two love affairs — one homosexual between a wealthy Egyptian man and an English solider, and the other between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman. Set in Egypt during and after World War II, the movie captured the complex identity of the country as races, cultures, nationalism and politics jostled for supremacy in the post-War society.

Chahine’s swansong, released this year, Heya Fawda (This is Chaos/Le Chaos) is no exception to it predecessors in grappling controversial subject matter. Co-directed with his protégé Khaled Youssef, the movie provides a sharp criticism of the Egyptian government’s crackdown on democracy activists, depicting a corrupt police officer who takes bribes and tortures his detainees.

To the end, Chahine shirked the fear that constrained many Arab film-makers, and established himself at the forefront of the art genre.

The film industry has lost a pioneer, but through his works, he has enabled other, new film-makers to venture in new directions.

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