Director Youssef shahin
Born a Greek Catholic Christian in Alexandria in 1926, Chahine studied acting in Pasadena, California, in the late 1940s and began work in the cinema on returning to Egypt. "He was the master. When you see the names of those who worked with him ... you can say that the giants of Egyptian cinema graduated from the Youssef Chahine academy."
"For 60 years he was the biggest name in Egyptian cinema and he breathed cinema to the very end. Youssef Chahine lived only for cinema," he said.
He is credited with discovering actor Omar Sharif, whose first starring role was in Chahine's 1954 film The Blazing Sun.
One of his first major works, often cited as his finest, was Bab al-Hadid [Cairo Station] in 1958.
Some political films followed, reflecting the political ferment of the period.
In 1978 he released the first of a series of four autobiographical films, Alexandria Why? and ended the quartet in 2004 with Alexandria New York, a film which explored his mixed feelings about the US.
He has died, July17 cause of slipped into a coma for several weeks in Paris before returning to Cairo earlier this month.