PARIS: Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine was listed in very critical condition in a French hospital on Tuesday, a day after he was flown to Paris after suffering a brain hemorrhage, an embassy official said.
Arab cinema s most celebrated director, the 82-year-old Chahine was breathing with the assistance of a respirator and no decision has been made about possible surgery, said Egyptian embassy official Hani Nimatallah.
He said Chahine was in very critical condition at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, west of Paris.
After suffering a brain haemorrhage Saturday, Chahine fell into a coma and was flown aboard a special chartered medical flight from Cairo to Paris, said his niece Marianne Khoury, who accompanied him.
In Cairo, President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt would pay for his treatment in consideration of his involvement in the construction of Egyptian cinema, MENA reported.
While Chahine is well known worldwide, and in 1997 was awarded the Cannes film festival s 50th anniversary lifetime achievement, his relations with the Egyptian authorities have often been difficult.
He never shied away from controversy during a long career, criticizing US foreign policy as well as Egypt and the Arab world.
Chahine made his first film in Egypt in 1950, discovering and launching the career of Omar Sharif.
He claimed Cairo stopped subsidizing his films 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. -AFP
