The Film

This film is an intimate epic of life and change in Baghdad over the past 4 years. Told chronologically, it juxtaposes the rhythms and concerns of everyday life with events of historical importance.

It is the story of my large Baghdad family as they struggle to accommodate the massive changes in their lives, in their city, since the fall of the regime in 2003.

My family had suffered through the constraints and losses of dictatorship and had somehow stayed together, survived, borne their scars, and were ready to embrace change when it finally came. Their personal story is a metaphor for the bigger story - a reflection of the enormous upheavals in Iraq since the end of Saddam’s rule.  As the film unfolds their mood gradually moves from fragile hope and celebration to a growing sense of disappointment and despair as the situation in the country becomes more chaotic and fragmented and as violence moves ever closer to them.