What if immortality was the cruelest gift a mother could give?
Anwar is a sci-fi short film about a mother who chooses to live forever and a son who longs for heaven. We see Anwar age from 8 to 18 to 80, while Mona remains eternal throughout, until he has a final moment of doubt, and she has a final moment of hope.
Cinematography
Three actors, one soul — aging made visible
Direction
19 minutes that feel like entire lifetimes
Writing
Heaven as rejection, immortality as prison
Director
Fawaz Al-Matrouk
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title names the son but centers the mother, a structural choice that mirrors how children often eclipse their parents' interior lives.
Director Fawaz Al-Matrouk explores Islamic concepts of the afterlife through a sci-fi lens rare in Arab cinema — the mother's eternal life reads as both miracle and curse in a culture that honors mortality's spiritual purpose.
US
