Siraa fil wadi

A melodrama about a young agricultural engineer who falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Chahine’s sixth film in four years would become his second film to be selected for the Cannes competition. Released two years after the Egyptian revolution, traces of neo-realism are detected in Chahine’s first socially-conscious work, one that openly discussed the growing rift between the decaying aristocracy and the rising working class. It also features the screen debut of Egyptian film icon Omar Sharif. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)