Film DAS SCHICKSAL by Youssef Chahine

Egypt, France 1997/ Director: Youssef Chahine/ Cast: Nour El-Sherif, Laila Eloui, Mahmoud Hemida a.o./ 135 min. | Arabic. OmeU

DAS SCHICKSAL takes us to Andalusia in the 12th century. The focus is on the famous Ibn Rushd – or Averroes, as he was known in the European Middle Ages. He is a respected judge and scholar under the Caliph Al-Mansur, whose rule becomes increasingly intolerant and authoritarian in the face of the threat of the Reconquista and the rise of radical Islamic sects. The historical narrative of how Averroes – who is mentioned in the philosophical texts of the Middle Ages as “the commentator” because he preserved Aristotle’s work and made it accessible with his detailed commentaries on it (“the philosopher”) – is deprived of the ground of tolerance in this new political situation and becomes a victim of political oppression himself, serves Youssef Chahine as a parable that enables him to reflect on our time.

Born in Alexandria in 1926, Youssef Chahine, along with Satyajit Ray (*1921) and Ousmane Sembène (*1923), belongs to the generation of filmmakers from the Global South who have attracted international attention since the 1950s with humanist films influenced by Italian neorealism. Although he was nominated for the Palme d’Or several times, Chahine was often viewed with skepticism due to his political proximity to the Nasser regime and Moscow and did not receive the recognition during his lifetime that was accorded to Satyajit Ray, for example.

WITH INTRODUCTION: Prof. Dr. Nikolas Jaspert, Department of History at Heidelberg University