On July 26th, Miya Miya Film Club heads to Golden Age Cinema for a screening of Youssef Chahine's Cairo Station.

There are filmmakers whose work you admire, and then there are filmmakers who make you feel seen. Chahine was one of those filmmakers for me.

As a queer Arab person growing up, I rarely saw people from our region represented with the complexity, sensuality, contradiction and humanity that I knew existed around me. Chahine's films offered something different. They were full of desire, longing, performance, excess, vulnerability and people who never quite fit where they were supposed to. Even before I understood why his work resonated so deeply with me, I felt drawn to it.

Many queer Arab and African cinephiles have found something of themselves in Chahine's cinema. Whether through his fascination with outsiders, his refusal of rigid identities, or the way his films overflow with emotion and theatricality, his work created space for forms of Arab life and subjectivity that often went unspoken elsewhere. He showed us that Arab and African stories could be expansive, modern, messy and alive.

Cairo Station is one of his best. Made in 1958, it remains one of the most radical films ever produced in SWANA and African continent. Its a gripping thriller and portrait of working-class Cairo, and a devastating study of loneliness, obsession and desire.

@ourgoldenage have got the goods and snagged the new 4K restoration, offering a rare opportunity to experience one of the defining works of Arab and African cinema on the big screen.

For me, this screening is not simply about revisiting a masterpiece. It's about celebrating a filmmaker whose work helped shape my understanding of what SWANA cinema could be, and what SWANA people could be on screen.

A portion of your ticket will also go to @sadaqawelfarefund.

If all that doesn’t entice you, I’m also going to be baking for this one.

Big thanks to @rippergently for making this a reality ❤️

Tickets available here.