The Dream of Shahrazad

South African director Francois Verster's new work is a documentary in which three elements, namely Rimsky-Korsakov's symphony Scheherazade, the classic Arab literature One Thousand and One Nights and the Arab Revolution are interlinked. Constructed like a book consisting of four chapters, the film progresses as if pages were turned, in tune with the Scheherazade's four movements. The camera moves back and forth in Turkey and Egypt, interviewing those who experienced the Arab Revolution or are related somehow to Shahrazad. Finely spun, the film has at its core a story, one which, like Shahrazad persuading the sultan to save many girls' lives every night, is a shortcut to access someone's heart. It is a means for an abused daughter to overcome and survive her tragic life with the power of imagination and a tonic for a mother who lost her son. Also the people, the subject of revolution, overlap with Shahrazad in an outstanding work in its completeness and creativity among films that deal with the Arab Revolution. (Busan International Film Festival)