Watch for an excellent short film in the coming weeks by Fawaz Al-Matrouk. The story concerns a young woman trying to escape fallen Rome with something of value. The mystery involves three men with whom she interacts at sea, in the desert and in a dark cave, where everything comes apart – or together – as the exact value of what she guards becomes clear. In his war-themed film school short To Rest in Peace, young writer and director Fawaz seeded the story with a subtle sense of purpose and he does so, here, too, improving his artistry by spreading the action across land and sea with those who go by faith, force and reason and dramatizing what it means to have and hold something of high value. The movie is being entered in an online film competition – details to come – and there’s a trailer on YouTube. For disclosure, I was a production assistant but I would say this even if I weren’t: if you like movies with ideas and action in which something serious is at stake, such as the similarly-themed Agora by Alejandro Amenabar, you’ll want to see Exitus Roma.
