On Cinema al-Dunya by Muhammad Malas

Abstract

This last chapter is Malas’s contribution to this book. Here, he reflects on the previous films of his trilogy that deal with different concepts of loss, to which the third film he is developing, Cinema al-Dunya, will add the lost self. He shares a treatment and script excerpt from this film. The narrative concerns a filmmaker who has just turned fifty at the outset of the 1990 Gulf War. The treatment tells us of his brush with death from a car accident during the filming of his latest work, which will put him into a coma. His recovery places him in a unique position to understand his life in film. Mirrors, memories, and rich cinematic landscapes dominate the mood of this imagined film.