Homeland: Iraq Year Zero (2015), Abbas Fahdel

Screening, Part I
Organized by: Center for Global Media, Department of English
Location: Student Union 330

Description: In February 2002—about a year before the U.S. declared war in 2003—Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture everyday life as his country prepared for war. He zeroed in on family and friends as they went about their business, with much of the action seen through the eyes of the director’s 12-year-old nephew, Haider. When Fahdel returned in 2003, two weeks after the war started, daily activities like going to school or shopping at the market had become nearly impossible; many areas of Baghdad had been closed off to ordinary citizens, yet everyone pressed on. The young Haider represents, in various ways, the voice of his people. Homeland, whose title was inspired by Roberto Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero (1948), counts among the most essential and urgent documentaries of recent times. Often recalling Frederick Wiseman, Fahdel’s intrepidly curious yet always unassuming camera patiently gathers intimate moments to assemble a rough-hewn epic of naturalist cinema and a searing, courageous act of testimony.