Father Amin

Youssef Chahine’s debut feature—made at the age of just twenty-four, shortly after his time studying acting in Los Angeles—is a touching, bighearted blend of family drama and fantasy (with musical numbers sprinkled in for good measure) that finds the director seamlessly blending the traditions of American and Egyptian popular cinema. Something like an Egyptian IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE meets A CHRISTMAS CAROL, the film spins the story of the simple but virtuous clerk Amin (Hussein Riad) who falls for a get-rich-quick scheme that soon goes wrong. When Amin suddenly dies, he observes from the afterlife the consequences of his actions on his struggling family. The film is famous in Egypt for featuring the sole dance number that Faten Hamama, perhaps the Arab world’s greatest actress, performed on-screen.