Film Screening and Discussion: About Baghdad (2004)—Award-Winning Documentary (27 April)

Film Screening and Discussion: About Baghdad (2004)—Award-Winning Documentary (27 April)

Film Screening and Discussion: About Baghdad (2004)—Award-Winning Documentary (27 April)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

About Baghdad


Film Screening and Discussion


Thursday, 27 April 2023
1:00 PM EST | 8:00 PM Baghdad


A Film by:

Sinan Antoon
Bassam Haddad
Maya Mikdashi
Adam Shapiro
Suzy Salamy

Cosponsored by Arab Studies Institute, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (Georgetown University), Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (George Mason University), Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University) 

This event is part of the Iraq 2023 Project


Produced by Quilting Point Productions (formerly InCounter Productions), Arab Studies Institute.

“a stunning achievement, at once soulful and analytical, a veritable ode to Iraq,” Ella Shohat. 

About Baghdad is the first film made about Iraq after the fall of the Ba’ath regime in July 2003. It won the “Best Documentary” prize at the Big Apple Film Festival Award in New York in 2004. It is perhaps the first effort to privilege the voices of the Iraqi people, from all walks of life as well as social, economic and ethnic backgrounds.  While many have talked about and for the Iraqi people, few media outlets have sought to probe beyond the simplistic binary of pro-US/pro-Saddam perspective so often found in Western and Arab media portrayals of Iraq. About Baghdad presents Iraqis who describe the pain, complexity and suffering of living under decades of tyranny, oppression, wars, sanctions and now occupation.  Silenced for so long by a regime that sought to replace the people with the image of just one man, and re-silenced by the bombs and occupation forces, the Iraqi people long to speak out and to claim their future. About Baghdad is a small step forward towards that goal in presenting audiences with their first opportunity to hear unadulterated Iraqi voices that should be privileged regardless of one’s perspective on the war and the justifications given for it.  

REVIEWS


In these bad times when Western television networks, with few exceptions, have become an instrument of imperial propaganda, independent documentary films are needed more than ever before. This affecting film shot in post-occupation Baghdad privileges the people of Iraq and they have a great deal to say about both Saddam Hussein's rule and the US occupation. These are courageous voices rarely heard on Western television. Listen to them carefully. These are the people on whom Iraq depends for its future.

Tariq Ali, Author
Bush in Babylon and
The Clash of Fundamentalisms 

About Baghdad is a stunning achievement, at once soulful and analytical, a veritable ode to Iraq. One of the filmmakers' return to Baghdad is far from being merely a geographical tour of post-Saddam Iraq; rather it is a voyage into the carnage inflicted on the psyche of a people abused by decades of massacre, rape, and torture, compounded by wars, sanctions, and occupation… Given the absence of Iraqi people speaking on the American media, About Baghdad provides a refreshing polyphony of Iraqi voices. Profoundly democratic in the true sense of the word, the film relays a non-monolithic representation of Iraqi people in terms of class, ethnic, religious, and gender, while also providing a full range of political perspectives, including communist, feminist and Islamicist. On trial are Saddam, the Ba'ath party, Arab and Muslim governments, along with the US and other imperial powers that allowed, directly and indirectly, the prolonged mutilation of Iraq. Interweaving a variety of Iraqi traditional songs to underscore a point or to illuminate the painfully absurd aspects of Iraqi existence, this chronicle of a 2003 summer visit to Baghdad turns the film into an unforgettable instance of contemporary cinema verité.

Ella Habiba Shohat, Professor
New York University

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Connections Episode 36: The War in Ukraine with Nabih Bulos (25 May)

Connections Episode 36
 

The War in Ukraine 

Mouin Rabbani interview Nabih Bulos


Wednesday, 25 May 2022
2:00 PM EST | 20:00 CET | 21:00 Kiev



Join us on Wednesday, 25 May for a discussion about the war in Ukraine between  Jadaliyya Co-Editor Mouin Rabbani and war correspondent Nabih Bulos. This episode of Connections will examine the various dimensions of the conflict and its global impact. 

Connections offers timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. It combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship. 

Guest


Nabih Bulos, who was in Ukraine at the beginning of the Russian invasion and has reported extensively from that country since then, is the Middle East bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. Since 2012 he has covered war, revolution, and upheaval throughout the region, including the expansion of the Islamic State movement and the campaign to defeat it. His work has taken him to Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the region, as well as on the migrant trail through the Balkans and Europe. A Fulbright scholar, Bulos is also a concert violinist who has performed with Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev, and Bono.

Host


Mouin Rabbani
 has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously Senior Analyst Middle East and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.

Previous Episodes


Connections Podcast Episode 1: The Biden Administration and the Middle East with Noam Chomsky

Connections Podcast Episode 2: The Politics of Holy Cities with Mick Dumper and Maha Samman

Connections Podcast Episode 3: Apartheid Israel with Norman Finkelstein

Connections Podcast Episode 4: Israel-Palestine: A Turning Point? with Nathan Thrall

Connections Podcast Episode 5: Investigating Israel with Lori Allen

Connections Podcast Episode 6: The US Congress, Israel, and the Palestinians with Lara Friedman

Connections Podcast Episode 7: Palestine at the Crossroads with Hanan Ashrawi

Connections Podcast Episode 8: Europe and the Arab-Israeli Conflict with Anders Persson and Diana Buttu

Connections Podcast Episode 9: Lebanon in Crisis with Nadya Sbaiti

Connections Episode 10: Crisis in Tunisia with Houda Mzioudet

Connections Episode 11: A Planet in the Balance with Jeffrey D. Sachs

Connections Episode 12: Focus Afghanistan with Benon Sevan

Connections Episode 13: Asylum in the USA with Basileus Zeno

Connections Episode 14 - Digital Espionage: A Global Pandemic with Marwa Fatafta

Connections Episode 15: The Lasting Legacies of US Torture with Lisa Hajjar

Connections Episode 16: Whither Yemen? with Helen Lackner

Connections Episode 17: A Decade of Upheaval with Nabih Bulos

Connections Episode 18 — Iran: Domestic and Foreign Politics with Ali Vaez

 
 


Connections Episode 22: Narrations of Palestine with Alison Glick and Nora Lester Murad

Connections Episode 23: The Global Far Right with Cas Mudde

Connections Episode 24: Crises in The Maghreb with Samia Errazzouki

Connections Episode 25: War Economies with Mark Taylor

Connections Episode 26: Libya in the Balance with Claudia Gazzini

Connections Episode 27: Israel's Sacred Terrorism with Remi Brulin

Connections Episode 28: Tunisia's New Autocracy with Mohammed Haddad

Connections Episode 29: Crisis in Afghanistan with Ali Latifi

Connections Episode 30: Yemen’s Endless War with Safa Al Ahmad

Connections Episode 31: Sudan Today with Khalid Mustafa Medani

Connections Episode 32: Protecting Cultural Heritage with Heghnar Watenpaugh

Connections Episode 33: The Struggle for Human Rights in the Middle East with Sarah Leah Whitson

Connections Episode 34: Palestinian Textbooks with Martin Konečný

Connections Episode 35: The Libya Intervention Revisited with Ian Martin