Part of CHAHINE: THE RESTORATION PROJECT

The third installment in Chahine’s quartet of autobiographical films finds the director’s work stalled by a strike. During the interruption in filming, Chahine reminisces about a past relationship with one of his actors while finding himself gradually drawn to an actress. The intimacy between director and performer is depicted symbolically, in a tender dance number clearly in homage to the Hollywood musical and set on a snow – covered street in Berlin during a film festival. A masterful amalgam of realism and fantasy, Alexandria Again and Forever is Chahine’s paean to the power of imagination and the artist (Harvard Film Archive)