"Egypt's Youssef Chahine, Arab cinema's most celebrated director, was to fly to Paris on an emergency flight on Monday after falling into a coma following a brain haemorrhage. [...]

"Chahine won official plaudits for his pioneering role in Egypt's film industry and was awarded the Cannes film festival's 50th anniversary lifetime achievement award in 1997. But he has never shied away from controversy during his long career, criticizing US foreign policy as well as Egypt and the Arab world.

"Chahine made his first film in Egypt in 1950 and it was there that he also discovered and launched the career of Omar Sharif, who shot to stardom with 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Doctor Zhivago.'

"He claimed Cairo stopped subsidizing his movies after his 1973 cult movie Al-Asfur (The Bird) which attributed the Arab defeat in the 1967 war against Israel to the corruption of the political classes at the time.

"He also made three highly acclaimed films in the late 1990s -- Al-Muhajer (The Emigrant), Al-Masir (Destiny) and Al-Akhar (The Other) -- which focused on tolerance and the distinction between Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.

"Despite his often abrasive tone, Egyptian authorities -- officially at least -- hailed Chahine's contribution to the nation's cinema and his "daring" representation of its society.

"His last film, 'Chaos,' was typical of the man who sought to uphold the rights of the oppressed, depicting a popular uprising in a Cairo district against a corrupt police officer and his abusive subordinates.

"Born in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria on January 25, 1926, Chahine received a French schooling and studied briefly at university there before moving to the United States to study theatre. [...]"

Source: Al-Jazeera (Qatar), June 16, 2008