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The Dream (12A*) + Screentalk

SAFAR Film Festival 2021

A young man lies on sand bags with a automatic gun behind him

Forty years after it was shot, SAFAR revisits Mohamad Malas’ documentary in a special screening followed by a talk on the making of the film.

Filmed in 1980-81, The Dream is composed of interviews with different Palestinian refugees including children, women, elderly people, and militants from refugee camps in Lebanon, including Sabra and Shatila. In the interviews Malas questions them about their dreams at night: a woman recounts her dreams about winning the war; a fedai of bombardment and martyrdom; and one man tells of a dream where he meets and is ignored by Gulf emirs.

Whilst filming Malas lived in the camps and conducted interviews with more than 400 people. In 1982 the Sabra and Shatila massacres occurred, taking the lives of several people he interviewed, and he stopped working on the project. He returned to it in 1986 and edited the many hours of footage gathered into this forty-five minute film, released in 1987.

Syria 1987 Dir Mohamad Malas 45 min
Arabic with English subtitles

Presented as part of the SAFAR Film Festival: Generational Encounters in Arab Cinema, in partnership with Shubbak Festival. 

SAFAR logo white background
Shubbak Festival 2021. A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture

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