Projects

We host a series of major research projects, funded by organisations including the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the British Academy.

Please see below for more information on a selection of major research projects in English Literature currently taking place or recently completed.

section of visit Palestine poster — Palestine in the Popular Imagination

Investigating how Palestine has been imagined in the public sphere in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

magnified dna strand — Double Helix history

This project thinks about the popular understanding of the work of DNA and, more particularly, how we might understand, represent, and visualise it.

Communist march in Ukraine — Wars of Position

This AHRC funded project takes a new look at Communism in the West.

Modern cemetery with Irish flag — My Country, A Journey

A research based drama on the migrant experience in Britain.

Lady Emmeline Courtenay, c. 1375 — Medieval Cloth and Clothing Lexis

This project investigated the complex relationships between vocabulary, artefact and image.

Discover more

Explore more English Literature and Creative Writing projects.

Little Dreams (Ahlam Saghira)

Catalogue Code

FILM000075

Synopsis

Little Dreams is the story of Ghareeb (Mervat Amin), a 13-year-old Egyptian boy whose father died a heroic death in the 1956 Suez Canal crisis when Ghareeb was still an infant. Ghareeb now lives with his mother in Suez during the period leading up to the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day War between Egypt and Israel.

Falling on difficult times, Ghareeb's mother sends him to work at the printing shop of one of her suitors, a pompous and overbearing man who treats the boy badly. Ghareeb then befriends one of his father's former colleagues and secretly prints up the man's political tracts.

When his mother marries the abusive print shop owner, Ghareeb finds a father figure in Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, after which he joins the local resistance, convinced that victory is near. However, his idealism is destroyed during the war along with his home, his town, and his dreams for the future.

Year of Release

1993

Running Time

81 mins

Distributor

Arab Film Distribution

EIDR

Genre

Drama

Language

Arabic

Country of Origin

Egypt

Permalink

http://arabcinemadb.alc.manchester.ac.uk/Public/Film/Show/FILM000075

Notes

Winner of the Best City Film at the 1993 Birmingham International Film Festival

People with a connection to this film

Copies in the collection

DVD ARA/FIL/0078 Subtitles: English

Last modified on 01/11/2013 14:06

Projects

Palestine in the Popular Imagination

Double Helix history

Wars of Position

My Country, A Journey

Medieval Cloth and Clothing Lexis

Discover more

Little Dreams (Ahlam Saghira)

People with a connection to this film

Copies in the collection

Record from the Contemporary Arab Cinema Database