Back to Babylon (film)
Back to Babylon | |
---|---|
Directed by | Abbas Fahdel |
Produced by |
Agat Films & Cie France 5 |
Music by | Sami Kaftan |
Cinematography |
Abbas Fahdel Amer Alwan |
Edited by | Sylvie Gadmer |
Distributed by | Doc & Co |
Release dates | 2002 |
Running time | 52 minutes |
Country |
France Iraq |
Language | Arabic |
Back to Babylon (Arabic: العودة إلى بابل, French: Retour à Babylone) is a documentary film directed by the Iraqi-French film director Abbas Fahdel.
Synopsis
Back in his home town of Babylon after a long exile, the Iraqi-born director Abbas Fahdel asks himself: "What has become of my friends? What has life here made of them? What would life here have made of me had I not decided to follow the course of destiny elsewhere?" In his search and inquiries, his encounters with the friends of his youth, it is the situation today in Iraq that is revealed through the camera's eye: the ravages of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, the after-effects of the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War and the embargo imposed by the United Nations.
Quotes
Abbas Fahdel (voice-over): "The past, with its overwhelming splendour and its scents of paradise lost, is too painful for Iraqis to bear. I recall my father reciting the poet Al-Rissafi: "We are not masters of our miserable present / On men of a foregone age / The face of time once smiled / But on seeing us, it darkened."
See also
External links
- Back to Babylon at the Internet Movie Database
- Official website (English)
- Back to Babylon at the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs (English)
- Photos gallery