Mohamed al-Daradji on The Fabulous Picture Show

The segment on Son of Babylon starts around 6 minutes in:

Son of Babylon director on Al-Jazeera’s The Fabulous Picture Show

Son of Babylon

Iraqi director Mohamed al-Daradji first appeared on The Fabulous Picture Show back in 2007, when we screened his first feature, Ahlaam, about three psychiatric patients in chaotic post-Saddam Baghdad.

It was one of the first films to be shot in Iraq after the American invasion began, and conditions could hardly have been more harrowing – the production team literally dodged bullets, and Mohamed was even kidnapped twice.

Mohamed’s latest feature, Son of Babylon, is also set just after the fall of Saddam in 2003. It follows a Kurdish boy, Ahmed, and his grandmother on a macabre road-trip as they search for Ahmed’s father, a soldier missing since the first Gulf war.

Their quest leads them to some of the mass graves where thousands of bodies have been discovered, and continue to be found – chilling evidence of Saddam’s bloody legacy.

Mohammed has used the film to help launch the ‘Iraq’s Missing’ campaign, which aims to identify the countless bodies still lying in mass graves.

He talks to FPS about the cast’s profound emotional journey while filming Son of Babylon, and the importance of forgiveness in Iraq today.

This episode of The Fabulous Picture Show can be seen from Thursday, April 29, at the following times GMT: Thursday: 0600; Friday: 0030, 0830; Saturday: 2330; Sunday: 0630, 2130; Monday: 1430; Tuesday: 0530, 1230; Wednesday: 0300; Thursday 0030.

Mobile cinema relief for Iraq

What can you do when nearly all of the cinemas in the country have been destroyed by bombs and warfare, obliterating a flourishing film industry? When people can no longer go to the cinema, you bring the cinema to the people: that was the reasoning that inspired Iraqi film maker Mohamed Al-Daradji in 2007. Although people laughed at the idea at the time, this summer his mobile cinema is touring Iraq to bring films to various locations.

Read the full article @ The Power of Culture.