Two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein news comes that prisoners of war have been found alive. 12-year-old Ahmed begrudgingly follows his grandmother on a pilgrimage to discover the fate of her missing son, who never returned from the First Gulf War. From the mountains of Kurdistan to the sands of Babylon, they hitch rides from strangers and cross paths with fellow pilgrims. Struggling to understand his grandmother’s search, Ahmed follows the footsteps of a father he never knew. Winner of Best International Film, Raindance International Film Festival and Winner of Amnesty Film Award & Peace Award.
Plus Short Film/ My Father’s Picture (U)
Dir Alan Amin/UK 2010/6 mins
My Father’s Picture tells the story of a young boy’s unexpected discovery of his father’s death through a strange twist of fate. It encapsulates the sudden rite of passage from boyhood to adulthood in an abrupt intrusion of reality, against the backdrop of the Iraq war.