First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

We return for the third part of our conversation with Hussein, offering an Egyptian perspective on his career and its contexts and significance. In this episode we touch on 'The Sparrow', 'The Return of the Prodigal Son', 'Adieu Bonaparte' and 'Alexandria...Again and Forever'. We will return for a final episode discussing the last stage of Chahine's brilliant career beginning with 'Cario as Seen b...

A conversation with scholar Misha Iakovlev on the fascinating Norwegian television show, originally aimed at young girls, that has elicited fervent fan following from different countries and for different reasons. Released across various platforms and edited together to broadcast, it's a fascinating example of queer transnational transmedial television that offers us a lot to discuss and much else...

We continue our discussion of the Iranian programming at the Wales One World Film Festival with Bahram Beyzaie's great, Downpour: influenced by Italian Neo-realism and European Art Cinema, one of the films that spearheaded the Iranian New Wave counter cinema, poetic and critical, and managing to synthesise realism and allegory. A great film. The full post can be found here: https://notesonfilm1.co...

We continue our discussion with Hussein, to garner an Egyptian perspective on the career of Youssef Chahine to 1985. We touch on Nile Boy, Blazing Sun, 'The Turn of the Decade' films (Forever Love, In Your Hands, Lover's Code, A Man in My Life. We discuss how some phrases from his films have become common parlance in Egyptian culture. We touch on the complicated relationship with Mohsen Mohieddin...

We continue with our exploration of the Iranian Cinema on offer at the Wales One World festival with a discussion of the extraordinary The Deer, a metaphor for pre-revolutionary Iran's social relations, focussing on down and outs living in a courtyard with a heroin addict and a bank robber as heroes. The influence of Italian neo-realism is everywhere present in a film that is simultaneously symbol...

A discussion of Filmfarsi, a film by Ehsan Khoshbakht, of a mode of filmmaking extremely popular in Iran -- urban gangster films, melodramas, musicals -- set in urban working class milieus, that evoked and challenged the country's vaunted leap in modernity. It's a cinema quickly banned after the '79 revolution, and a cult on VHS. The filmmaker shows the wide range of filmmaking, its transnational...

This podcast has been very lucky with its listeners. Hussein, not only provided us with a possibility of viewing the wonderful Dawn of a New Day, but produced the sub-titles necessary to understand it. I took the opportunity of talking to Hussein to ask him about things we as English-speaking viewers simply did not understand. i.e an Egyptian perspective on the politics, the history, the significa...

A discussion of Atef Salem's 1959 Encounter with the Unknown, part of a cycle of films we will be covering as a way of setting a context for better understanding the work of Youssef Chahine. We discuss the very glamorous pairing of Omar Shariff and Samia Gamal, the superb mise-en-scène and visuals, what such skill brings to a rickety script and what it cannot, the relative lack of conceptual and t...

Richard Layne and I return with a discussion of Dawn of a New Day, one of Chahine's best. It echoes Sirk once more and has traces of An Affair to Remember and European Art Cinema like Antonioni's La notte or Fellini's La dolce vita whilst remaining very much a popular melodrama about love which is also a commentary on the state of the nation and its future. A very beautiful film and so accessible...

A discussion between friends, informed but eager for exchange and hoping to contribute to a discussion. We probably missed many reference points but as soon as we stopped talking I realised the most obvious one is 120 BPM.

An extended discussion of Youssef Chahine's Alexandria New York. 'I love American cinema but America doesn't love me'. Anyone who loves Chahine's cinema will find this irresistible. A film made by someone who thinks and knows how to visualise and dramatise. We will see it again

A discussion of Silence...on tourne focussing on the many characteristic flourishes we like so much in Chahine's oeuvre but exploring also why they are less satisfying in this particular work.

A discussion of one of Youssef Chahine's most enjoyable films, The Ring Seller/ Biya el-Khawatim. We discuss the film in relation to Chahine's oeuvre, to national and transnational cultures, to the musical genre in relation to theatrical operetta and zarzuela but also in relation to films like Powell/Pressburger's Oh.... Rosalinda! and Arthur Freed musicals.

The Youssef Chahine Podcast returns for a discussion of Destiny, with its images of book burnings, its themes of love and religious tolerance, its genre-bending mix of historical epic and musical extravaganza, and Chahine's characteristic artfulness with the techne of filmmaking.

After a brief gap, José Arroyo and Richard Layne return for the 24th episode of the Youssef Chahine Pocast, an extended discussion of L'autre/ The Other. a film about Orientalism, Imperialism, Terrorism; an examination of class structures with a gender analysis; a film about a land and its people...yet one that also recalls popular melodramatic and glitzy works like Dynasty. Not quite top Chahine...

Richard returns to discuss Youssef Chahine's fascinating musical in the light of Tara Shehata's great podcast on the film last week.

The Youssef Chahine Podcast talks to filmmaker Tara Shehata about two Youssef Chahine musicals, C'es toi mon amour/ ENTA HABIBI (1957) and Silence, on tourne!/Skoot hansawwar (2001).

A discussion of the Youssef Chahine's Devil of the Sahara aka The Desert's Devil. We discuss the influence of Zorro and Robin Hood on the film, how Sharif is deployed as a combination of Errol Flynn AND Tyrone Power. We praise the film's production values; how it's a piece of entertainment filmed with a verve and flair that comes across even in the very bad copy we had access to. The film has exci...

A discussion of Nissae Bila Regal, Women Without Men, sometimes also known as Only Women, a Youssef Chahine film from 1953 with superb production values, musical numbers a la MGM and a plot that recalls Federico Garcîa Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. We discuss many of the themes that are to recur throughout Chahine's oeuvre: the influence of Hollywood cinema, melodrama, an exploration of mode...

Yaser Hammad is a young Saudi filmmaker as well as the screenwriter of Saudi Arabia's first ever feature film, Roll'em. Meeting Yaser here has been one of the great pleasures of doing the Chahine podcast. Not only is he, like us, a great admirer of Chahine but, unlike us, he's got access to all the Arab writing on Chahine and is much more knowledgeable about actors, songs, the whole pop and social...

A discussion of Youssef Chahine's very first feature, Baba Amin/ Papa Amin/ Daddy Amin. We discuss how the first half seems like the work of a different, less talented filmmaker, how the second half comes alive with charm, inventiveness, song; how Faten Hamama once more comes across as one of the great presences of world cinema; the connection to the Astaire/ Rogers Swing Time; its interesting mix...

An appreciation of Chahine's short but great Cairo as Seen By Chahine. We discuss the film's self-reflexiveness. How its aware of framing, composition, Foreign expectations, relations and obligations concerning style and subject matter. How to film and evoke a city? How to do it with respect and love for its inhabitants? How to politely warn about dangers around and dangers ahead and how to unders...

A discussion of Le sixième jour, which Chahine dedicates to Gene Kelly as a thank you for having filled his youth with joy. A rare Chahine film that is centred on a female star, female desire and female self-actualisation in a patriarchal culture. A hybrid of a woman's film and musical. It's set during a cholera pandemic, which resonates with the present, and also features a story of the unrequite...

José Arroyo and Richard Layne discuss Youssef Chahine's The Emigrant in the light of the previous conversation with Martin Stollery and in the light of Dr. Stollery's monograph on the film.

Richard Layne and José Arroyo discuss Adieu Bonaparte, the notorious Franco-Egyptian co-production, and the only Chahine film we've been able to find on Blu-ray (under France's 'Heritage' collection). Of interest to anyone concerned with questions of North African Cinema, Colonialism, Arab Cultures or the various ways sexuality has been queered in non-Western countries.