Opera marks 10th anniversary of Youssef Shahin’s death

SEE - July 26th :The Egyptian Opera house marked today the 10th anniversary of iconic cinema director Youssef Shahin’s death.

AlHanager arts center showed one of Shahin’s movies followed by an open discussion about his works and thoughts reflected in them.

Meanwhile, AlHadara cinema center, at the Opera house, organized an art seminar titled “The space.. The heroic aspect in Shahin’s movies”.

Shahine was born in Alexandria, Egypt, 1926. He started studying in a friars' school, and then turned to English College until the High School Certificate. After one year in the University of Alexandria, he moved to the U.S. and spent two years at the Pasadena Play House, taking courses on film and dramatic arts. After coming back to Egypt, cinematographer Alevise Orfanelli helped him into the film business. His film debut was Baba Amin (1950): one year later, with Son of the Nile (1951) he was first invited to the Cannes Film festival. In 1970, he was awarded a Golden Tanit at the Carthage Festival. With Le moineau (1973), he directed the first Egypt-Algeria co-production. He won a Silver Bear in Berlin for Iskanderija... lih? (1979), the first installment in what proved to be an autobiographic trilogy, completed with _adduta misrija (1982)_ and Iskanderija, kaman oue kaman (1989).

In 1992, Jacques Lassalle proposed him to stage a piece of his choice for Comédie Française: Shahine chose to adapt Albert Camus' "Caligula," which proved hugely successful. The same year he started writing The Emigrant (1994), a story inspired by the Biblical character of Joseph, son of Jacob. This had long been a dream-project, and he finally got to shoot it in 1994. In 1997, 46 years and 5 invitations later, he was again selected Hors Competition in Cannes with Destiny (1997).