Discoveries from Iraq World Cinema

Kurdish-Iranian poet Sahel has just been released from a thirty-year prison sentence in Iran. Now the one thing keeping him going is the thought of finding his wife, who thinks he's been dead for over twenty years.

In the city of Soli, ruled by Anfa 8, where night is eternal, Horus hunts a renegade cult of solar worshippers who are desperately searching for the sun.

In Mosul, a city devastated during the battle for liberation from the Islamic State, the fight to heal and preserve its identity, culture, and art is not over. Three men refuse to let Mosul remain in ruins. A city with 8,000 years of history, struggling to reclaim its soul through those who refuse to let it fade into oblivion.

Tiku Weds Sheru is a romantic comedy about two quirky characters who dream of becoming film stars. While their romance blooms, they get caught between the chaos of the underworld and drugs, and face one tragedy after the other. Will their relationship survive the odds thrown at them?

Two shoeshiner homeless brothers named Zana and Dana live on the edge of survival. They catch a glimpse of Superman through a hole in the wall at the local cinema and decide that they want to go to America in order to meet Superman.

Ziné and Avdal are madly in love in spite of their families’ ancestral feud. When both parties finally set aside their differences and agree to their children getting married, Avdal is injured at the front and his inability to perform sexually casts a shadow over the wedding night. As this revives the family tensions, the newlyweds start exploring new forms of pleasure. Will their love overcome decades of conflict and tradition?

In the winter of 1988, in the depths of the Iraq/Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.

Baran, a war hero, becomes sheriff of the capital and refuses to bow down to a tribal chief.

A wide variety of Iraqis in exile meet at Café Abu Nawas in London, including the architect Amal, the poet Taufiq and the gay IT specialist Muhannad. They all want to finally feel free in London - something that was denied them in their homeland. But adversity threatens...

Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.

Haunted by the chemical attacks that claimed the lives of his family, a Kurdish sniper flees his homeland in search of a better life in the United Kingdom. However, he is caught up in a terrorist plot.

During the British colonial period in Iraq, Sheikh Dhari and his tribe openly reject colonization and employ peaceful resistance against the British occupation. In response, the English forces resort to violence, targeting Sheikh Dhari's locations in their confrontation with Laghman. When he is captured, they accuse him of blocking the road, revealing the schemes orchestrated by Britain in Iraq.

Zagros (26) is a shepherd who lives in a Kurdish village with his pregnant wife Havin and their daughter. His father tells him that people gossip about Havin: there are rumours of her having an affair. Zagros brushes his father’s concerns away as he trusts his wife and refuses to give credit to the rumours. Later, while Zagros tends to his sheep, he learns that his family have accused Havin of adultery and locked her up. Zagros returns to his village but finds his wife and daughter gone. Havin has fled to the west with their daughter and unborn child. Zagros, believing his wife’s innocence and opposing his father, travels to Istanbul and meets a smuggler who can take him to the west…

The film presents the topic of migration, cultural contrast and human alienation, through a group of young people who are forced to migrate, facing severe social pressures and having difficulty in adapting to their new environments.

Kamal, a young Iraqi man entering Europe on foot through the border between Turkey and Bulgaria, is captured by Bulgarian border police but escapes, finding himself to search for a way out in a seemingly interminable forest, an underworld where rules and laws don’t exist, where he is wounded and chased by Bulgarian migrant hunters. For three days and three nights Kamal must fight for his life through a journey of survival until a final life-or-death confrontation.

Tofiq and his father watch Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, and because of their differences they get into a debate; to settle it, they decide to have a showdown. Tofiq loses and, because of it, is forced to leave their house and go into the city. There he encounters someone else and they start having beef, and this goes on until the end of the movie.

The talented Hamoudi is an 11-year-old boy with a passion for soccer and an ultimate dream to one day reach the level of his idol Lionel Messi. The day Hamoudi is caught in a horrific suicide attempt, he wakes up severely injured in a hospital. As his parents struggle to keep the family safe, Hamoudi is determined to fight for his shattered dream.

The film takes place in one of Baghdad's abandoned buildings, where Alaa meets a researcher obsessed with the city's secrets, and is swept along with her on a mysterious journey in search of a world buried beneath Mesopotamia.

Abu Al Jees is a killer who erases his victims. But he meets someone who challenges him.

Azad comes to Sweden by mistake. In order to blend in with the family that hides him, he must pretend that he is nine years old. Suddenly he's quite alone in a new country and doesn't understand the language. But with the help of a spaced-out hot-dog vendor, the coolest guy in school, and world champion Kajsa Bergqvist, maybe he can find his real family again.

A historical epic about the battle of Qadiseya, which was helmed by the Arabian knight Saad Ibn Abi Waqas, and which enabled Muslims from conquering Persia in 636 A.D.

Before Snowfall starts with a dramatic escape: Eighteen year-old Nermin runs away from her wedding in a village in Iraqi Kurdistan. Being the elder of the family, her younger brother Siyar becomes responsible for finding her and restoring the family reputation. The mission proves a dangerous one for the inexperienced Siyar. First stop is Istanbul, where he meets Elvin, a young girl who becomes his travel companion. On the way from east to west, through Europe and all the way to Norway, Siyar comes to realize his own need for respect, and for love.

Laith, a 22 year old male wakes up on his birthday in Mosul, Iraq, only to have problems with his boyfriend, Mohanad a 27 year old male. Mohanad believes that Laith is cheating on him with a girl and a fight erupts as Mohanad storms out of the apartment only to rush back as he sees ISIS have taken over the city and raid the apartment block.

Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, live many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein's administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors.

During the 30 years of the Baath ruling under Sadam in Iraq thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were either killed or disappeared. Around 182,000 people lost their lives when 4500 villages and townships were destroyed in Kirkuk, Soleimanieh, Dahouk and Erbil regions with the aim to exterminate the Kurds and to arabize Kurdistan. Having found one of the mass graves after 24 years in the southern deserts of Iraq, became the basis of a movie describing the living conditions of these villages inhabited by mostly mothers, daughters, wives or sisters of those victims.

Qala falls in love with a girl, getting him in trouble.

A priceless tablet of Gilgamesh, the oldest and most important work of literature is stolen from a museum. A security guard vows to do whatever it takes to get it back from a group of smugglers. Along the way, he faces his own inner demons.

In 1959, underground revolutionaries try to assassinate Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Kassem in Baghdad. News reports claim they have failed, and at first the revolutionaries lay low, but as the secret police continue to comb the neighborhoods with house-to-house searches, they flee to the countryside. Among those fleeing is Saddam Hussein, the future president of the republic.

On the anniversary of BLACK WEDNESDAY and his fifth birthday a young boy is taken to visit his father's grave. Distracted by his toy car the little boy wanders off and becomes lost in the labyrinth of graves where he meets an unconventional new friend who will mysteriously lead him back to his mum.

Milo, a strong-willed feminist, discovers the long-sought power to wander around freely in Baghdad by dressing in her brother’s clothes. Khalili, a young and ambitious filmmaker, realises that his camera can be the strongest of all weapons.

The footage of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein crawling out of a hole in the ground in 2003 is iconic. Now, 20 years later, the man who dug that hole tells the fantastical story of how he, an ordinary farmer, hid the deposed president beneath a flowerbed in his garden for eight months. On camera, he talks about the day his house was selected as a hideaway for this wanted man, hunted by 150,000 US soldiers. The Iraqi farmer had no choice but to assume the role of presidential hairdresser, physician and bodyguard—and something akin to a friendship seems to have grown between them as they ate together and helped wash each other’s backs.

A police officer finds himself haunted by a traumatic childhood memory as he searches for a missing man in the rugged mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, in this striking feature debut by Batin Ghobadi.

The movie follows the story of a guy who's notorious in his village for his evil eyes, wrecking havoc on anything he lays his eyes on.

Innocence tells the story of children who resisted to be enlisted but capitulated. Their stories were never told as they died during their service. Through a narration based on their haunting diaries, the film depicts their inner turmoil. It interweaves first-hand military images, key moments from childhood until enlistment and home videos of the deceased soldiers whose stories are silenced and seen as a national threat.

Set during the Iraq-Iran war in the 80s, the film tells of a tragicomic road trip set in Iraq's Kurdistan.

A sad clown encounter with a little boy holding a balloon

An upcoming movie by anmar ali

When his friends introduce him to a pretty girl, Aras falls in love with her and wants to propose to her.

"Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's seminal work 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', THE GREAT CITY is a profound cinematic inquiry into the ontology of truth within the digital ruins of the modern world. The film navigates the psychological landscape of the 'Last Man', exploring the encroaching desert of the soul and the 'blind point' of human consciousness. Through a minimalist and melancholic visual language, it challenges the viewer to confront the illusions of contemporary existence and the search for authentic meaning in an era of absolute spiritual void."

Two Kurdish little people in Iraq risk their lives to fulfill their dreams and that is to meet football hero Cristiano Ronaldo.

2006, Baghdad is ravaged by sectarian violence. Haifa Street is the epicenter of the conflict. Ahmed gets dropped off there by a taxi on his way to his beloved Suad's home to ask for her hand for marriage, he gets shot by Salam, a sniper who's living his own personal hell on a rooftop above.

When As’ad, a 12-year-old rubbish picker, adopts an American sex doll from the Baghdad dumps, he crosses into a perilous red zone, finding himself caught in the crossfire between abusive forces of commercialism and fundamentalism in a world where defenders of humanism have lost their power. He embraces the courage it takes to not just survive, but live.

In the 2000s, several families in Sulaimani were recording videos and archiving their family memories in various ways. Peri, in her early teens, has just gotten married. Her mother passed away when she was very young, so she spent her entire life living with her aunt and cousin. Her aunt and cousin arranged her marriage to someone outside their family, which later caused significant problems in her and her husband's life. These issues eventually forced Peri to revisit the old family archives to find a way to resolve their troubles.

A festival is being held in Babylon, to which archeologists, artists, and media professionals are invited, along with an Egyptian television delegation headed by an archaeologist. This scholar meets an Iraqi girl who bears Iraqi features, and gives her appearance the impression that the archaeologist, the archaeologist, and that his dream has begun to materialize in front of him, and a group of comic situations begins.

(Nadia), who was born and raised in (France), returns to (Iraq) to rediscover her roots and origins. During this journey, (Nadia) gradually uncovers the story of her grandfather, Haj (Najm) Al-Baqal, the owner of the date shop, and the man who was one of the prominent leaders of the revolution in (Najaf) against British colonialism in 1918. The film sheds light on the impact that Haj (Najm) Al-Baqal's struggle left on the people of (Najaf).

Young mother Lori must say goodbye to her husband, who decides to join the war against ISIS. She finds herself in a fight in midst her own society. Thus, Lori searches to express her feelings in dance.

Three Kurdish immigrants arrive in the UK, as illegal aliens to seek asylum. Finding they now belong to London's underground.

A story unfolds with a dying king revealing to his three daughters that one of them must ascend to the throne. However, each princess, aspiring to become the next monarch, must undertake tasks bestowed by the moon priestess. Their ultimate quest involves retrieving a golden apple, a sacred symbol, to be presented at the temple, signifying the chosen one's rightful claim to the title of the new queen.

A detective abandoned his daughter right after his wife's death for a governmental mission. This made her daughter angry. He risks his life to find his daughters missing best friend in order to fix their relationship. Their search leads them to face a deadly organ trafficking band who has blackmailed a doctor for harvesting the organs.

Iraqi filmmaker Hassan documents the lives of his friends and neighbors in the tumultuous days following the U.S. invasion of his country.

On his wedding day, a Kurdish man must flee through Turkish, then Iraqi and eventually Iranian Kurdistan.

Rojin is a young Kurdish woman about to take the university entrance exam. Rojin's unhappily married older sister Shilan decides to help her pass at any cost, hoping to give her a more emancipated life. Thus, the sisters inevitably become entangled in a huge network of corruption that connects all parts of society.

The Mesopotamian Marshes, at the delta of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in the south of Iraq. This is where Mastour and Zahra grow up. Shortly after their marriage, Mastour and Zahra are forced to separate when the Gulf War breaks out. On the battlefield, Mastour befriends Riad, a young soldier from Baghdad. Mortally wounded, Mastour makes Riad promise to protect Zahra when the war is over. When Riad arrives in the village, he falls deeply in love with Zahra. But unable to bear the loss of her husband, Zahra shuts herself off. In this completely foreign environment that is hostile to this newcomer, and as a new conflict is on the verge of inflaming the whole area, Riad will do the impossible to find his place.

A true story that occurred during the Iraq-Iran war, where one of the Iranian shells hit the bride Lamia on her wedding night. The story narrates the reality of the border city (Mandali) situated between Iraq and Iran, where the girl Lamia maintains loving relationships with everyone, highlighting the role of infiltrators like the madman who transmits information about the city to the other side.

For Nariman the pilot and Helly Luv, an aspiring singer, being Kurdish is not just an identity; it’s a full-time job. Nariman needs young recruits for his flying school—a goal made darkly comic since he just survived a plane crash—while the illustrious Helly collects Kalashnikov rifles and a sea of Kurdish flags to produce her music video. In the midst of another war against the Kurdish people, Nariman reminisces about a long-lost love, and Helly finds herself connecting with Kurdish children at a refugee camp near the Syrian border, who are in urgent need of inspiration and hope.

Bahoz is 19 years old and lives surrounded by nature and beautiful landscapes. Every day, he goes to the mountains to hunt although he catches very little. But today will be the day that will change his life forever.

Kurdish childhood friends Hussein and Alan want to produce a film about the genocide of Kurdish people in Iraq, the Anfal campaign in 1988. They learn that, to achieve veracity by the means of cinema and to face their own identity, it's worth putting everything on the line - even their own life.

A suicidal person believes everyone deserves to die, but he soon discovers that he desperately needs help. Death is not a solution.