Youssef Chahine needed no introduction in the Arab world, but in Europe his name still carried the weight of discovery. When this interview was first conducted for EuroMed Café in 2006, Chahine had already completed more than forty films spanning six decades — a body of work that mapped the emotional and political contours of modern Egypt’s cinematic history with a ferocity matched only by its tenderness.
Born in Alexandria in 1926 to a Lebanese Catholic mother and an Egyptian father of Greek Orthodox background, Chahine embodied the cosmopolitan Mediterranean identity that his films so often celebrated. After studying at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, he returned to Egypt and launched a career that would earn him the Lifetime Achievement Award at Cannes in 1997 — the first for any Arab filmmaker — a milestone in the Mediterranean film festival circuit.
His Alexandria trilogy (Alexandria… Why?, An Egyptian Story, Alexandria Again and Forever) remains among the most personal works in world cinema: semi-autobiographical narratives that blend politics, sexuality, and artistic ambition with a directness that regularly brought Chahine into conflict with censors.
This interview took place during the Euro-Mediterranean cultural program “Another Look,” a period when Chahine was working on what would become Chaos (2007), his final completed feature. He was 80 years old, sharp, restless, and deeply worried about the direction of the Arab world. He died in Cairo on July 27, 2008.
EuroMed Café: You have said that cinema is the only language that everyone understands. After fifty years of filmmaking, do you still believe that?
Youssef Chahine: More than ever. Look — when I made Alexandria… Why?, people in Egypt told me I was being too Western. People in France told me I was too Egyptian. But audiences in both places cried at the same scenes. They laughed at the same moments. The specific becomes universal. This is what cinema does, and no other art form does it quite as immediately.
EMC: Your films have been censored in Egypt, challenged in court, banned in some countries. How do you navigate that as a filmmaker?
YC: You don’t navigate it. You fight it. Every time. I went to court over The Emigrant because religious groups said I was depicting the Prophet Joseph — which of course I was not. But I stood in front of the judge and said: this is my right. Art does not answer to theology. The moment you accept censorship, you are finished as an artist. Finished.
EMC: The Euro-Mediterranean dialogue often speaks of building bridges between cultures. What does that mean to you in practical terms?
YC: It means you have to walk. A bridge is useless if nobody walks across it. I have spent my life walking — to Hollywood, back to Alexandria, to Cannes, to Beirut, to Paris. Every film I make is a step on that bridge. But here is the problem: people on both sides are afraid to take the first step. They sit and wait for the other to come. That is not how it works. We have to walk to meet the others. Both sides. At the same time.
EMC: You started going to Cannes in the 1950s. How has the European perception of Arab cinema changed since then?
YC: In the fifties, they did not know we existed. In the seventies, they were curious. In the nineties, after the Lifetime Achievement, they started paying attention. Now? Now they are interested, but for the wrong reasons. They want films about terrorism, about the veil, about the clash. They want us to explain ourselves. I refuse to explain myself. I make films about love, about ambition, about family. These are not “Arab” themes. These are human themes.
EMC: What advice would you give to young filmmakers from the Mediterranean region?
YC: Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for funding. Stop waiting for the festival to select you. Make your film. If you have a camera and a story, you have everything you need. The rest — the red carpets, the prizes, the interviews — all of that is noise. The only thing that matters is the work. Always the work.
EMC: Your new film, Chaos, deals with corruption and political violence in contemporary Egypt. Is it your most political film?
YC: All my films are political. Cairo Station was political. The Sparrow was political. Even my musical — yes, I made a musical — was political. But Chaos is direct. There is no metaphor. The country is in chaos. The police are brutal. The fundamentalists are rising. The young people have no future. I am eighty years old. I do not have time for metaphors anymore.
Youssef Chahine completed Chaos in 2007 with his longtime collaborator Khaled Youssef. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in June 2008 and died weeks later. His films remain the cornerstone of Egyptian cinema and a testament to the possibility of a Mediterranean cultural identity that is neither Eastern nor Western, but something larger than both.