Son of Babylon

The director of festival favorite Ahlaam returns with a road movie across Iraq – a land where roads, it seems, are the only things left intact. The gritty, neorealist film is set after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. On hearing news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the south of Iraq, a willful young boy follows his just-as-obstinate grandmother on her journey to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed’s father, who never returned from the Gulf War of 1991. From the mountains of the north to the sands of Babylon, they hitch rides with strangers and cross paths with fellow pilgrims on all-too-similar journeys. Struggling to understand his grandmother’s search, Ahmed follows in the forgotten footsteps of a father he never knew on a journey that will ultimately lead him to come of age. The film’s cast and crew include many survivors of Saddam’s regime (lead actress Shazada Hussein is the only woman to have testified at his trial), but the film refuses pity and sensationalism. “This is different than the Iraq you see on the news,” Al-Daradji says. “It’s a human Iraq.” This stunning new work is a testament to the continuing search for justice and closure in the new Iraq. —Middle East International Film Festival