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A Star in the Desert is a 15-minute dramatic short film that tells the story of the first day of the bombing of Baghdad from a child’s point of view.
Amir (7), a dreamy kid is reading the fairytale book “a star in the desert”, a gift from his father. His mother learns that Baghdad will be bombed the next day.
As Amir and his mother Fatimah descend into the basement for security, his mother warns him it is no longer safe to play outside as he often wanders off to play soccer with his neighbor rami.
Fatimah and Amir plan to travel to Jordan as soon as possible, but Amir, who still believes his dead father will return, wonders how his dad will find them if they leave. The following morning reality, fantasy and dreamscape overlap as Amir ventures through a trap door into the underground tunnels soldiers once used to escape the draft.
At this point - the audience is left wondering what is real verses fantasy. Many of the elements found underground are of symbolic nature: a river, a cave, an unseen friend crying for help, a giant bird that attacks him and his escape into the desert sand dunes where he is chased by men on horseback and tries desperately to find and touch a star in the sky.
As Amir becomes a part of the fairytale that he reads about, the “star” that he finds in the desert turns out to be a bomb, and the men chasing him in the desert are actually the medical team attending to him and other family. We brutally awaken onto the operating table where other children are also badly burned and his mother stands wailing.
The audience is left with the news recounting the first bombs to hit Baghdad and the unfortunate children who were outside playing soccer that morning which included Amir and his neighbor rami
Amir is, as he always believed, finally reunited with his father, but it is in the afterlife, in the familiar desert from the fairytale “a star in the desert”, where they find each other.