A masterpiece from Youssef Chahine, the dean of Egyptian cinema, Cairo Station is "a neorealist classic worthy of early Fellini" (Michael Webb, AFI). It shows this great director's gifts-a propensity for movement, rhythm, and visual expressiveness-in one of the more personal and socially conscious films of a career that began in 1950. "Cairo's main railroad station is the setting for society in small, a community comprised of luggage carriers and soft-drink sellers who live in abandoned traincars. A crippled newspaper dealer, Kinawi (played by the director himself), falls madly in love with a beautiful and indifferent lemonade seller, who has eyes only for the handsome Abu Sri', leader of the luggage carriers. Swept away by his obsessive desire for Hanuma, Kinawi kidnaps her, with terrible consequences. Chahine explores the taboo subjects of sexuality and violence, repression and madness among the marginalized." (Alia Arasoughly) Repeated Friday, January 24.