The Emigrant

One of director Youssef Chahine’s most controversial works ignited a firestorm of criticism from both Islamic and Christian voices, who objected to its liberal reinterpretation of the biblical story of Joseph (here renamed Ram to skirt censorship that forbids the depiction of religious figures). Nevertheless the film proved one of Chahine’s biggest commercial triumphs at home, a passionate evocation of ancient Egypt that uses the story—in which a young dreamer (Khaled el-Nabawy) leaves behind his backwards rural home and sets off to the intellectual center of Egypt on a journey fraught with political and sexual peril—to comment on deeply personal ideas about resistance, sacrifice, and liberation.