Immanence in the Pixel: Traditional Cultural Origins of Math and Technology
An evening of film video and web screenings curated by Laura U. Marks
Presented Saturday, May 11th at 8 pm

Destiny
Youssef Chahine, Egypt, 1997, 35mm, 5:00 excerpt

Only Youssef Chahine could make a musical about the 12th century Islamic philosopher Abu ibn Rushd, known in the west as Averroes: a musical whose climactic scene is a book burning. Destiny explores the rise of fundamentalism and xenophobia in both Europe and the Ottoman Empire at the time of the Crusades. Yet Arab science was light years beyond the miserable knowledge of the Christina countries. In this scene, Averroes uses a water telescope to observe the gathering of fundamentalists who would ultimately brand him a heretic.Excerpt courtesy of Leisure Time Features.

Youssef Chahine - Biography

Celebrated Egyptian director Youssef Chahine was born to a Syrian Christian family in Alexandria in 1926. He has made over 40 films whose styles run from social realism to historical epic to musical. He holds the Cannes Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award.