By Jason Apuzzo. The Hollywood Reporter today has an interesting piece on Iraq’s official foreign-language Oscar submission, Mohamed Al-Daradji’s Son of Babylon. It looks like a bit of a tearjerker.
It’s worth noting that there would not, of course, be any official foreign-language Oscar submissions from Iraq if that country were not now free.
Some years back we were honored to show short films from Iraq’s first film festival here in Los Angeles at the Liberty Film Festival. They were small, personal, humble efforts – so I’m very glad to see the artistic fruits of Iraqi freedom now appearing in such ambitious, large-scale form on the big screen.
You can see the film’s trailer here.
Posted on December 1st, 2010 at 11:19am.
I always thought that one of the tragedies of our national debate (if you could call it that) on the Iraq War was that the opponents of the U.S. efforts there never remembered the millions killed by Saddam and his horrifying weapons.
Opposition to the war was purely political, and that undermined U.S. troops, and the sacrifice of the people that died under Saddam’s boot.
There were legitimate problems with the Iraq War that our discourse never got to tackle. Perhaps films like this will help us look back and learn, so that one day if our country has to go to another war, we will focus on the truth, and that our words will be constructive.
All true, Vince. And it’s also time that Iraqis themselves weigh-in on this debate, as their voices are rarely heard over here.
It’s a quite striking experience to see Iraqis stand up and be free. I was an early supporter of the Iraq war because of the WMD threat that never fully materialized. I have to say my support for the war waned as they weren’t found in large quantities but then a cousin of mine died over there. I didn’t know him at all, but just the fact that someone from my extended family died got me to thinking about why we were over there. Combined with hearing from the families of fallen soldiers, the images of purple fingers really struck a chord with me and it finally hit home that this was about the Iraqis. A liberal sports writer asked on another blog why we had gone to war and the truest answer I could give him was that I could get him in contact with my cousin’s wife and she would tell him what her husband heard from the Iraqis.
Now, he can see for himself as the Iraqis enter the larger world. Just the fact that we can hear their voices at all is telling to me that our military did some damn good work over there.
That’s a touching story, Shin. Thanks so much for telling us that.
Imagine, in this vein, if the fellow who made this film above actually received an Oscar, and was allowed to tell his story in front of a worldwide audience. I’ll bet it would be extraordinary. Giving these people a chance to build their own democracy, and develop their own unique voices, is what it’s all about.
And I believe such a day is coming for Iran, as well … and we (i.e., the U.S.) probably won’t even need to be the ones liberating them. I suspect they’ll get it done themselves.