Cairo's central station. In this microcosm where passions intersect, Kenaoui, a disabled beggar, is in love with Hanouma, an illicit street vendor, who he dreams of marrying. She prefers Abou Serib, an activist porter, who dreams of creating a union. Blinded by jealousy, Kenaoui kills another young girl then tries to kidnap Hanouma, but is prevented by the people who live in the station. A story of love and madness, Gare centrale (Central Station) was Youssef Chahine's eleventh film. He himself played Kenaoui and his choice of subject, with its strong erotic charge, was a provocation to Egyptian censorship at the time.

Egypt 1958, 35mm, b/w, 76 min. Arabic with English subtitles

Written by Abd al-Hayy Adib. Photographed by Alvizi Orfanellí.

With
Hind Rustum (as Hind Rostom), Farid Shawky, Youssef Chahine, Hasan al-Baroudy.

Chahine himself stars in this melodrama of poverty and sexual frustration that shocked Arab audiences in the 1950s. The filmmaker is remarkably effective as a crippled newsvendor who lives alone in a squalid, pinup-lined shack and whose obsession with a beautiful young lemonade stand vendor leads inevitably towards violence. One of the decisive turning points in Chahine's long career, Cairo Station marked a new visual daring and embrace of ambitious and controversial subject matter, an attempt to rejuvenate formula-driven mainstream Egyptian cinema by judiciously adding formal and thematic elements from both neorealism and German expressionism.

Source: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2009janfeb/chahine.html


FESTIVALS / AWARDS

2009 | African Film Festival - BAM-PAF (University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive) | BERKELEY, Ca, United States | January 25, 2009 - February 22, 2009 | www.bampfa.berkeley.edu
* Selected [In Memory of Youssef Chahine (January 25, 1926-July 27, 2008)]

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AR


فيلم باب الحديد
بطولة: هند رستم - فريد شوقي - يوسف شاهين
اخراج يوسف شاهين
انتاج عام 1958