THE American University in Cairo (AUC) has recently published an academic study about late Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine (1926-2008) entitled “The Arab National Project in Youssef Chahine's Cinema” (Hardcover book, price $22). "Most people in the West are unable to really understand the contexts of Chahine's films, because few studies about them have been published in languages other than Arabic," said Malek Khouri, the author of the new book. "His importance came from the way he portrayed social issues and the dreams of all people," he told The Egyptian Gazette. Malek, who lived in Canada for many years, is an associate professor of Film and Director of the Film Programme Department of Performing and Visual Arts at the AUC, which, in collaboration with Misr International Films, celebrated the art and life of the late Egyptian filmmaker last week by screening his greatest movies. Chahine, whose nearly five decades of films went on Felliniesque flights of fancy and tackled social ills and Islamic fundamentalism, was one of Egypt's most famous directors. His eclectic work made him one of the few Egyptian directors to gain an audience abroad, particularly in Europe and France, where he won a lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. French President Nicolas Sarkozy once said that Chahine was one of cinema's most celebrated servants and a fervent defender of freedom of expression. At home, his films raised controversy for their frank portrayal of sexuality, their sharp criticism of political oppression and, in his later works, their denunciations of rising Islamic extremism in Egypt.
