المنام

Kuratiert von Irit Neidhardt


Filmed in 1980-81, The Dream is composed of interviews with Palestinian refugees including children, women, elderly people, and militants from refugee camps in Lebanon. In the interviews, Syrian director Mohamad Malas questions them about their dreams at night. “The viewer might realize how I emphasized those nightmares which the Arabs caused in the lives of the Palestinians.” Whilst filming, Malas lived in the camps and interviewed more than 400 people. In 1982, the Sabra and Shatila massacres occurred, taking the lives of several interviewees, and he stopped working on the project. He returned to it in 1986 and made the post-production, with the support of the Palestinian Liberation Organization PLO, at the TV of the German Democratic Republic in East Berlin. The idea behind The Dream is one of solidarity and opposition, whilst the story of its production discloses how winding the paths of democratic endeavor can be. (IN)

Irit Neidhardt is author, curator and scholar in the field of Cinema and the Arab World. Additionally she runs mec film, an international distribution and sales company for films by Arab directors.