Metrograph

The first film in Chahine’s epochal autobiographical tetralogy, a dramatic departure from the musicals and melodramas that he’s made his name with, introduces the director’s alter ego, Yehia (Mohsen Mohieddin), as a movie-mad teenage schoolboy with aspirations of growing up to be an actor in a World War II-era Alexandria where British and Egyptian troops are bracing themselves to stave off the advancing Germans. Deftly weaving together personal and national history, Chahine produces a teeming tapestry of a film; figures found herein include blundering would-be guerrillas, the brother of a Pasha who falls in love with the Englishman he’s marked for execution, a Muslim communist facing exile with his Jewish lover, and his lover’s father, who leaves Alexandria behind for the relative peace of Palestine.

Distributor: Janus Films

Introduction by Alia Ayman on Sunday, October 19th