‘Wilderness Of Dreams’ began as a personal exploration of darkness that led the director deep into Sinai’s Al Maghara, Egypt’s only coal mine and a rare Arab experiment in heavy industry. What started as an introspective journey evolved into a collective act of memory. Through encounters with the mine’s ageing workers, now scattered across Egypt, the director uncovered a story caught between dreams and loss. Their silenced voices evoke a post-independence era of ambition that faded into abandonment and fear after the 1967 war and the occupation of Sinai. Blending poetic narration with testimonies, rare negatives and reflections from the geologists who discovered the mine in the 1960s, the film reconstructs an alternative history, one where Al Maghara stands both as a real place and a metaphor for Egypt’s vanished hopes and enduring resilience.