Dreams of the City

IFFR is offering a home-in-exile to the Visual Arts Festival Damascus, since it cannot take place in Syria this year.

A young widow and her two sons are forced to move from their native Quneitra to Damascus to find shelter in her father’s house, only to be met with cruelty and rejection. The youngest son is sent to an orphanage, while the oldest boy, Dib, is forced to take responsibility for himself and his family.
Against the background of the turbulent 1950s in Syria with its succession of military coups, Dib comes of age as he learns to support himself and tries to understand the complex realities of Damascene society with its political changes, communal strife and multiple facets.
The film is an early example of Syrian auteur cinema; of fiction that borrows strongly from documentary. Filmed from the perspective of a boy, it is at once a document of Syrian recent history and a compelling coming-of-age story.