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Baghdad on/off

Saad Salman
2002 France 86 minutes Arabic
DR

After thirty years of exile in France, an Iraqi filmmaker decides to return incognito to Baghdad to visit his dying mother. A few miles past the border, he meets an old woman, a refugee, who gives him five eggs for his sick mother. This marks the start of a road movie through Iraqi Kurdistan, mixing poetry, humour and drama. During the journey, his guide-a character who symbolises the Iraqi way of thinking-will try to get him across the invisible line that marks the division between the north, protected by a UN resolution, and the rest of the country controlled by the Iraqi army. He makes a series of attempts but, each time, something stops him at the last minute, as if invisible forces had united against him. Will he finally arrive in Baghdad? Will his mother finally receive the fragile gift from the old woman?

Production :
Vents du sud Productions
Editing :
Saad Salman; Vincent L'Hostis
Sound :
Saad Salman; Hawri Aziz; Khalil Loka; Fikri Babaker
Photography :
Saad Salman; Hawri Aziz; Khalil Loka; Fikri Babaker

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