Feature film
Dreams of the City
أحلام المدينة
Mohamed Malas · 1984
Synopsis
On his father's death, Dib leaves Quneitra for Damascus with his little brother and his mother. The grandfather, a tyrant, reluctantly agrees to take them in and wants to force his daughter to remarry. Dazzled by the city, Dib would like to uncover all its secrets, but his days are filled with humiliations and blows. He grows up to the rhythm of the political upheavals of the fifties: the end of the military dictatorship, the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the union with Egypt in 1958.
Context
The first fiction feature of its author, partly autobiographical, written with Samir Zikra and produced by the state film organisation. It features the Lebanese actress Yasmine Khlat in the role of the mother, with Bassel Abiad, Rafiq Subaie and Ayman Zeidan. The film marks Syria's passage to an auteur cinema and heralds a generation of filmmakers who challenge the established order within a tightly controlled industry. It opens a partly autobiographical trilogy, the second part of which was released in 1992.
Who it is for
A feature film in Arabic of about two hours, seen at a child's height; it gains from being read alongside the Syrian history of the fifties.
Prizes and reception
Golden Tanit and four other prizes at Carthage, three distinctions at Cannes, golden palm at Valencia, all in 1984; a mention at the Berlin Forum in 1985.