In Le Caire, Youssef Chahine sketches a personal view of Cairo as he shows his home town to a foreign visitor. All the registers are opened to capture the intensity of the colourful and complicated city in pictures. Chahine was given a completely free hand by his client, the French TV station Antenne 2, during the production. In Egypt the film provoked angry reactions. Chahine was accused in the media of confirming western prejudices about the Arab world in this film made for Europe. Most critics who were angry had not seen the film, so Chahine organised a screening in Cairo where more than 1500 journalists turned up to watch it on a television screen. The reactions were completely different: Chahine was praised for his attempt to show the real Cairo.Chahine himself faces the camera as the narrator, but the film also follows a kind of guide, an unemployed actor criss-crossing the city in search of work. On his quest he visits the film school, the university and the studio where Chahine really works himself.Chahine is mainly interested in people. In Le Caire he didn’t want to make a film about the ‘stones’, but to express his love for the people of Cairo.
