Egyptian director Youssef Chahine reacts after winning the Cannes film festival 50th anniversary award for all the movies he's directed, in Cannes in this Sunday 18 May 1997 file photo

Renowned Egyptian film maker Youssef Chahine, whose films reached beyond the Arab world, died early Sunday after several weeks in a coma.  He was 82.

Chahine was born to a Lebanese Christian family in the port city of Alexandria, which was at that time a center of cosmopolitan life in the Mediterranean with its large foreign communities.

Throughout his more than 40 films, he tried to recapture the spirit of multiculturalism and tolerance that he grew up with there, because he saw it threatened by fundamentalism, dictatorship and imperialism.

Chahine's films were popular internationally - particularly in France.  In 1997 he received a lifetime achievement award at the Cannes film festival.

His final film "Chaos" was released earlier this year.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.