Director · Actor · Writer · Producer

Youssef Chahine

27 credited titles on WatchWise

Youssef Chahine (born in Alexandria, Egypt, 1926) started studying in a friars' school and then turned to Victoria College until High School Certificate. After one year at 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 Alexandria... Why? (1979), the first installment in what proved to be an autobiographic trilogy, completed with Hadduta Masriya (1982)(An Egyptian Story (1982)) and Alexandria: Again and Forever (1989). In 1992, Jacques Lassalle proposed him to stage a piece of his choice for Comédie Française: Chahine 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

Commercial performance

Not enough verified figures yet — only 0 of 15 catalogued titles have publicly reported budget and worldwide gross. Many films (television, independent and regional cinema) never publish these numbers; where they exist, WatchWise fills them in automatically from TMDB and Wikipedia.