Earlier this morning, contemporary culture lost one of the godfathers of the Arab film industry, as the renowned Egyptian director, Youssef Chahine يوسف شاهين, passed away in Cairo at the age of 82, after slipping into a coma following a brain hemorrhage.

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

Inspired by both Alexandria and Cairo, the twin metropolises would later feature substantially in the director’s work, as Film Comment noted:

The introvert is often associated with Cairo, with its narrow streets and cramped dwellings – while the extrovert is associated with Alexandria. . . . [which] remains the golden city of Chahine’s work, a cosmopolitan Utopia where Europe and Africa peacefully coexist, where Christians (Chahine’s family was Roman Catholic), Jews, and Muslims could once live together, providing a model for a now lost Middle Eastern harmony. The image of the port, open to the world, becomes an image of acceptance and synthesis.

After spending a year at Alexandria University, Chahine convinced his parents to let him visit Hollywood to study acting.

Between 1946 and 1948 he studied at the Pasadena Playhouse outside Los Angeles, and on his return to Egypt, he began apprentice work with the Italian documentary film-maker, Gianni Vernuccio, and Alvisi Orfanelli.

Already resident in the movie hub of the Middle East that had annually produced films since the 1930s, Chahine commenced his first film, Baba Amine (Father Amine) in 1950.

Nevertheless, it was his second film, Ibn el-Nil ابن النيل, (The Nile’s Son) 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 storm.

As the festival goers thronged into his showing to escape the rain, so too did they expose themselves to a cinematic revelation, thereby sealing the fate of Chahine’s reputation in the movie industry.

With a directing career spanning 58 years, it is indubitable that Chahine’s work 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 and imperialism – he also raised controversy.

In 1958, Bab El Hadid باب الحديد (Cairo Station), while a classic of Egyptian cinema, shocked viewers both by the sympathy with which a “fallen woman” is depicted and by the violence with which she’s killed.

Al Asfour العصفور, (The Sparrow), in 1973, attacked Egyptian corruption and blamed it for the defeat in the Six Day War.

And finally, in 1994, a fundamentalist lawyer succeeded in getting a court to ban his film Al Mohager المهاجر, (The Emigrant) because its plot was based on the story of Joseph, found in the Bible and Quran.

Chahine was also a ground-breaker, as the first director to introduce art films to the Arab world, spawning the genre of “Chahinian” film, marked by his ability to render the plot not the main factor of success, but rather the mise en scène and the bizarre shocking reactions of all the different characters.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Chahine pursued an autobiographical style, recounting his childhood and American experiences through the Alexandria Trilogy: Iskanderiya…Lih? اسكندريه ليه, (Alexandria, Why?) in 1979, Hadduta Misriya مصريه, (An Egyptian Story) in 1982, and Iskanderiya Kaman w Kaman اسكندريه كمان وكمان, (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 an Egyptian man and a British solider, the other between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman.

Chahine’s swansong, released this year, Heya Fawda (This is Chaos / Le Chaos) is co-directed with his protege Khaled Youssef, and 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 today lost a pioneer, but through his works, he has enabled other, new film-makers to venture in new directions.

[Stills via: Bab El Hadid, Baba Amine, and Le Chaos]