From within the shelters that are home to Syrian children at the Chatila camp in Beirut, Lebanon; the director Lina Al Abed vividly portrays the haunting dreams of these forcefully migrated children, intersecting their deep stories and nightmares into one dream in the movie - The Dream of Strong Monsters - a short film by Bidayyat Productions.
Using daring audiovisual language that combines the beauty of the portrayal of the children, with the sensibility of the image, Lina Al Abed seeks an expressionistic pattern that resembles their dreamworlds. "It's an attempt at facing my own nightmares that invokes my continues insomnia", Al Abed says, "Maybe then, life spent dreaming will be better than reality".
The pale, silent faces of the little children staring us in the eyes without really seeing us, the echo of their voices coming from far away, makes us feel like we're sneaking into their private world, facing with every moment our own fears and night-mares.


Lina Alabed's new film - The Dream of Strong Monsters - portrays the life and dreamworld of Syrian refugee children living in shelters in the Chatila camp in Beirut, Lebanon's capital. She fuses their profound stories of loss and displacement having fled the violence in their neighbouring country, with their haunting dreams to create a fusion of reality and the subconscious. The result is an expressionistic film that resembles the children's own dreamworld. "It's an attempt at facing my own nightmares that invokes my constant insomnia", Alabed says, "Perhaps a life spent dreaming will be preferable to reality".
The children's pale, silent faces and their intense gazes, along with the echo of their voices that seem to come from far away, gives the impression of sneaking into their private world, and by trespassing on their dreams, confronting our own fears and nightmares.

Director: Lina Alabed
Duration:7:41
Year of production: 2013
Produced by: Bidayyat