The Last 15 Seconds

About The Last 15 Seconds

This project explores the topic of terrorism starting with the tragic death of Syrian-American filmmaker Mustapha Akkad and his daughter Rima during a series of co-ordinated attacks that hit three prominent hotels in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005. Akkad is the director of two major films both starring Anthony Quinn, The message: the Story of Islam (1976) and Lion of the Desert (1982). Akkad saw these films as a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Islamic world. He was also the producer of the Halloween film series.

The work constructs an imagined physical and verbal dialogue between Mustapha Akkad and Rawad Jassem Mohammad Abed, the suicide bomber who carried the explosion that killed Akkad. The work also looks at the imagined lives and memories of both the victim and his killer at the time of the explosion.