Egypt's internationally known filmmaker Yussef Shahin has stopped smoking and cut back on his work after suffering from a recurring buildup of water on the lungs.
In the last seven months, the 75-year-old Shahin has been hospitalized several times for heart and lung problems, and consulted doctors in France, but his current condition is not serious enough to require treatment overseas.
Gabriel Khuri, who co-owns Misr International Films with Shahin, said to AFP that "He frequently suffers from sudden and strong hypertension which requires sending him to the hospital to drain the edema."
The filmmaker "admits smoking 120 cigarettes a day, but nobody has been able to verify the exact number," he added.
"He stopped smoking, follows a diet without salt, walks every day and regularly takes his medicine, following the advice of doctors for the first time in his life," Khuri said.
"Jo," as his friends and relatives call him, cannot stop working entirely, though. His latest film is in the last phase of production.
He works in the office three hours a day, then works at home for another two hours to "settle details," Khuri said.
In 1994, his film "the Emigrant", inspired by the Biblical story of Joseph, drew fire from Islamists who accused him of "blasphemy".
He also produced a film in 1997, "Fate," which attacked Islamists who imposed their religious views on learning and which was featured in the Cannes Film Festival.
Shahin's last film, "al-Akhar" (The Other), was shown in cinemas in Cairo and other Arab capitals in 1999 – Albawaba.com
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