SCREENS WITHIN
By Mohamed Salah

GENRE: Thriller / Suspense, Science Fiction

LOGLINE:

An isolated, young man discovers a short film on his computer starring himself in an alternate reality. As he watches his screen-self watch another version of him, the boundaries of his identity blur, and the destructive events on screen begin to bleed dangerously into his actual room.

SYNOPSIS:

ABDEL-HADY (30) is a deeply introverted, drug-dependent cinephile who spends his entire existence locked inside his room, surrounded by classical art and books. His static life shatters when he discovers a mysterious video file titled "Abdel-Hady: A Short Film" on his computer. To his horror, the film features a perfect double of himself in a blue-collar job, living in a parallel version of his own neighborhood. As Abdel-Hady watches the screen, a mind-bending, meta-cinematic paradox unfolds: the second Abdel-Hady turns on a TV and watches a third version of himself dealing drugs at a local café. Concurrently, the third version receives a mobile link showing the first Abdel-Hady dancing in the original room. This claustrophobic, endless loop of screens shifts from a psychological puzzle into a visceral nightmare as the timelines begin to violently cross-pollinate. When the drug-dealing version gets arrested, and the worker version is trapped in a devastating earthquake, the physical toll manifests in the real Abdel-Hady's room. Trapped in an inescapable maze of his own shattered psyche and shifting grief over his dead parents, Abdel-Hady realizes that the only way to turn off the screens and escape the burning simulation is a final, tragic act of self-erasure.