Discoveries from Iraq World Cinema

a group of people hacks and steal from rich people for money

An Iraqi romantic comedy

Story of a Kurdish family who struggle with many problems and hardships in life, but they do not give up and continue to seek happiness and try to fight their misery.

In a remote village between the rocky mountains in Kurdistan, everyone is in love with football, but there is no plain field to play the game. The children decide to climb up the mountain in order to find somewhere to play the game.

A spin-off from the Abandoned city movie focusing on the mysterious man and his son in the night of the Abandoned city

A social drama about Abu Haila, who tries to impose his opinions on others. But his decisions turn out to be wrong every time and he finds himself in unexpected paradoxes.

"In an era where information flows faster than air, the truth is being besieged. 'The Illusion Industry' is a documentary film that deconstructs the sophisticated tactics of fake news and psychological warfare. From the streets of Iraq to the global digital stage, the film analyzes the 'Illusion of Truth' effect and 'Confirmation Bias,' supported by data from MIT and Oxford. It is a visual manifesto that challenges the viewer to reclaim the courage to think."

Ibrahim finds himself under intense nervous pressure as he seeks revenge for his father's murder by one of the sons of his village in a brawl that occurred between them. At the same time, a love relationship arises between him and the girl Ward, so he tries to persuade his family to forgive and distance themselves from bloodshed. On the other hand, Ibrahim tries to monitor what is happening in his work, dealing with theft and looting, attempting to rectify the situation in various ways.

In August 2014 Isis attacks the city of Shingal and the villages surrounding it, while Haider and 21 members of his family are escaping the terrorists, something happens that drastically changes the course of their lives. in a double narrative fractured storyline, Haider must choose a path.

Qassem has an accident that causes him to experience amnesia. A rural family finds him and gives him the name Hammady. He lives happily until another accident leads to the recovery of his memories.

Warya is a bookseller in the city who cannot arrange a wedding party for his fiancé due to his poverty situation. One day his friend reads him a text of the country's constitution, which changes his life.

A love story unfolds between a girl and a young man in one of the coastal areas. They become involved in a physical relationship, resulting in her becoming pregnant. Tragically, her lover dies in an accident. Fearing disgrace, she attempts suicide, but is rescued by a kind-hearted fisherman who falls in love with her and cares for her in his small cottage. However, the girl dies after giving birth to their child, leaving the fisherman in shock.

A young filmmaker, unable to express his emotions in reality, retreats behind the lens of his camera to create a surreal 'blue' world, seeking to preserve the simple details of his beloved that are slipping away in the real world.

Outside a stark tent city, this version of the game involves a grid of squares, two across by six long, marked by lines gouged into the arid ground. The player tosses a stone into the grid and starts hopping up one side of it to where the stone lies, careful to land only once in each square or station. When the stone is reached it must be kicked or nudged back down the other side to the start line, still hopping on the same foot. The test is difficult, and few succeed. For as the closing subtitles tell us: ‘In ancient cultures hopscotch symbolizes the progress of the soul from Earth to Heaven. The player hops between Worlds to escape Hell and reach Heaven, from which he will return to Earth reborn and redeemed.’

The Daughter of the Haymaker is a real story when a British soldier who fell in love with a Kurdish girl and kidnapped her.

In a comedic framework, the story follows two friends living in Baghdad, Iraq, as they experience a series of humorous and awkward situations in their everyday lives. The film was not released due to technical issues.

The film portrays the daily life struggles of a simple employee who dreams of nothing but marrying the girl he loves.

A sad clown encounter with a little boy holding a balloon

The topic of the work deals with the idea that adults are of size, their behavior is not clear by the smaller of them .. Size is an important criterion through which each person looks at things from a different perspective Everyone sees things from a different perspective

Kavan is a teenage boy with Down syndrome who lives with his mother and older brother. His father passed away many years ago.

On New Year's Eve, artist Mohammed Al Salem meets with Hossam Al Rasam to decorate the New Year and make it happy.

An elderly man from a distant village in Iraqi Kurdistan is mightily vexed by his daughter’s dreams of becoming an artist, in contrast with his desire for her to graduate from the faculty of Islamic Studies.

Haunted by the memories of his childhood in Baghdad, Abdullah retreats into his deep past. Leilah seeks one last moment of connection with her father before he no longer remembers who she is.

Latif Al Ani photographed Iraq for 30 years before multiple wars arose. At the age of 86, he travels through his devastated country in search of the people and places he photographed at the time, sharing his pictures with Iraqis who today cannot imagine that the world in the photographs was real.

A short film about man found a bag of money

The film portrays the Iraqi army's role in confronting Iranian aggression during the war between Iraq and Iran from 1980 to 1988. The film highlights numerous heroic acts of Iraqi army personnel during this conflict.

Baghdad Outside Baghdad is based on the Gilgamesh Sumerian legend, set in the first decades of the 20th century and told with a realistic and human hold. The story portraits six different stories that in different ways reflects the intellectual and cultural life in Iraq in that period, a period that fostered great poets and singers. The film presents six figures from this period through easy going as well as melancholic perspectives, while they live as strangers in their homeland and slowly move towards death. Gilgamesh is constantly present in the story, and as set in the historical epic portrayal, watchful and fearful of the death. Baghdad Outside Baghdad is outermost a historical portrait of Iraq.

A man tries to meet death by the tree where playful children come and go.

The blind ferryman Ayoub lives in the swamps of southern Iraq. One day he meets a mysterious woman and falls for her. Nobody believes that she exists. When even his neighbors turn away from him, he carries out a fatal act in desperation.

This film is not just about vitiligo - it’s about how we see, how we judge, and how we can begin to reimagine what beauty truly means. It’s a portrait of one woman’s transformation, but also of my own evolving understanding of perception and human dignity.

In 1929, Diessmann, a German scholar, discovers an ancient map of a Kurdish Admiral, struggling to find out the map's secrets, and expose one of the biggest lies in history. The chart leads him to so many troubles during his Journey around the world.

Little brother (Xanî) is asked by his mother to wake his big brother (Millet) for breakfast. What seems like a simple mission turns into a comedic adventure.

The film revolves around a group of Iraqi soldiers who carry out an attack on a site during the Iran-Iraq war and show great courage as they return safely.

A romantic story set in the heart of a war-torn Kurdish town. When Sherin leaves to fight, her anguished lover Ferhat stays behind awaiting her return.

A simple employee decides to marry his colleague at work, but he can't get her a proper apartment, so he turns to friends to help him in vain. They decide to get married in a mobile caravan, and they face funny situations.

Due to the ISIS war, Kani (a pregnant singer) and her husband decide to leave Kurdistan. After meeting with a Turkish smuggler, they have no choice but to make the arduous journey inside an emptied, claustrophobic oil tanker across the Turkish border, stuck with a group of people who are also running for their lives.

Nazima, a young woman from Diwaniyah, one of the distant provinces, comes to the capital fleeing the cruelty of her stepmother, Sabriya, who has turned her father against her. Determined to choose her own future and reject the constraints that bind her freedom, she works hard, proves her worth, and builds a life for herself. Though she suffers from loneliness in the capital, she confronts every obstacle and hardship with resilience and strength.

A Yezidian teenager who lives in refugee’s camp, helps his family by selling sheep milk, but when his main Yezidian costumer is no longer in service, he has to sell it to Muslims, who are not interested!

The film seeks to articulate the progressive social ideals brought forth by the July 14 Revolution, including women’s liberation, gender equality, and the growing political and social awareness of both women and youth. It emphasizes the values of sacrifice and commitment to the الوطن (homeland). Blending emotional storytelling with patriotic songs, the film unfolds as a heartfelt narrative that intertwines a love story with national identity and collective aspiration.

Sala and a friend watch a football match between Argentina and Brazil, sparking an argument and a gun war. Sala kills his friend's father and moves from their village to the city. He encounters three men in a public park and defends a beaten guy. Later, he falls in love with a girl, Sozyar, and works selling watermelons. They win the match, but Sala scores an own goal. He follows Sozyar and they get married, moving back to Sala's village. Sala visits Hama, who sings a song for Sala's return.

'A Swing in Atayfiyah' dwells in the memory of homes and friendships left behind in Iraq, the irrecoverable sense of belonging, and the dissonance of diaspora. Atayfiyah, Baghdad, a place of peace and heartbreak.

The subject of the film is about two major problems in Kurdistan. The problem of Colubris in Iranian Kurdistan and the chemical bombing of the city of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The story is told in the language of an Iranian Kurdish girl. This girl is the helper of her disabled father who has been forced to work in Culbery. Rojin loses his childhood and while crossing the border, they enter a border village and meet a boy named Karvan from the village. Rojin looks into the classroom through the window of the village school and gets acquainted with the caravan. Caravan also has problems like Rojin. The trials and troubles of life are always in the way of these two characters

The film portrays the events surrounding the wedding of a young man in a popular alley in the Adhamiya neighborhood, and the ironic, laugh-out-loud comedic situations he encounters, as he is surprised by a series of incidents that grow more frequent and intense on the wedding day itself.

In the face of an ultimate decision, nature intervenes.

An independent Kurdish short film that highlights the conflict between individuals and their true selves, particularly in societies that suppress authenticity and freedom. Just when she thinks she’s finally gotten over the desire to find herself, her true self haunts her one last time and asks to play one round of chess, in which they both play in favor of only one.

In pre-revolution Iraq, in one of its border cities, Jasim is being persecuted by the authorities, and his family is also displaced, while everyone is waiting for a revolution to end their oppression.

footage from different times, places and friends along the way and trying to capture the best moments out of them under the circle of experimental cinema..

The daily antics of an Iraqi manager

Ahmed flees his war-torn homeland of Syria and faces discrimination in Iraq. The people of the new society he joins make it impossible for him to move on and begin a new life.

An Iraqi film about the life story of a money collector (Kamsari) inside one of the public transport buses in Baghdad, and the daily encounters with various segments and different characters, along with the funny situations and incidents that ensue.

It's 2004, and the news that Saddam Hussein has died sends shock waves through the Middle East. Shaho is the son of an elderly man of Iranian Kurdish heritage; the old man's health is failing him after suffering a stroke, and he's convinced he doesn't have long to live. Shaho, his father, and their family have been living in an Iraqi refugee camp for a while, but with the passing of Saddam, Shaho believes the time is right for them to return to Iran, where father can spend his last days in the land of his birth. However, as Shaho is making plans for the trip back to Iran, his cousin Sheelan visits the family for the first time in twenty years; her parents fled to Sweden when she was a child, where she's now a physician, and she wants her dying uncle to join her there where he'll be safe and well cared for.

Kurdish Family who decided to immigrate from Russia to Sweden. Along the way, the plot turns into a detective story during their stay in Russia.

To escape to the European paradise, the only way is a tunnel that is hidden. A 70 years old Christian man (Uncle Zuheir) lives among the Muslims, his wife and his daughter were victims of violence, he lives next to the tunnel so that he can help people and save their lives.

The film was not permitted to be screened, similar to another Iraqi film, Hafr al-Batin. Some said the ban was because the film did not appeal to President Saddam Hussein, while others argued it was due to the film’s criticism of the dictatorial regime. The former explanation is considered more likely.

The story revolves around a beautiful young woman who lives with her husband (Ibrahim). He supports both his mother and his wife in a modest home, working as a street vendor. They live happily together until he becomes addicted to alcohol, and their lives are turned upside down.

The film is about children with autism and the pressures they face, such as fear, bullying, negative feelings, and imagination.

In 2003, Baghdad-born Mohamed Al-Daradji returned home after a decade in exile to film Ahlaam, the second feature shot in Iraq post-Saddam Hussein. This documentary follows the idealistic young director as he realises his dream in bizarre and turbulent circumstances. With its improvised form and unpredictable course, the film reflects the incredible risks confronting filmmakers in ‘liberated’ Iraq and celebrates Iraqi people’s spirit to survive amid overwhelming social and political chaos.

In the Iraqi countryside, the beautiful girl Warda, with her sweet voice, is romantically involved with the young man Rashid. However, the villainous dagger ruins this relationship through rumors and lies, leading Warda to leave Rashid and marry a wealthy man. Despite this, the bond of love continues to haunt the lovers.

Although the film was completed, it was never screened to the public due to unclear production reasons. It is a love story that encounters several obstacles and ultimately ends with a happy conclusion. The film also includes a number of songs performed by the singer Saeed Al-Jalawi.