THE DREAM

Forty years after it was shot, the SAFAR Film Festival 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. During 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 45 minute film, released in 1987.