Film screening and director Q&A

Life After the Fall

  Share:


Tuesday, 15th February 2019 | 18:30 - 21:00

 

Life After the Fall/حياة ما بعد السقوط (Kasim Abid, 2008)

In 2003, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, a London-based Iraqi director returns to his country for the first time in 30 years. Over the next 5 years, he intermittently films his large multi-generational Baghdad family. The result is a film both intimate and epic, juxtaposing the rhythms and concerns of everyday life with the massive upheavals of history.

The film was highly acclaimed at international festivals, winning first prize at the Munich International Documentary Film Festival 2008 amongst others. It has been screened by television channels internationally, including Channel 4 in the UK.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A, moderated by the guest curators of I am British Petroleum: King of Exploitation, King of Injustice.

This screening commemorates the 16th anniversary of the transnational Iraq War protests that took place in 2003.

Release Date: December 2008 (United Arab Emirates)

Run time: 100 minutes 

Languages: Arabic, English

Film trailer: https://vimeo.com/104060722

 

Kasim Abid is an award-winning Iraqi filmmaker, director, producer and cameraman. He is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad and holds an MA from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (then known as the All Union State Institute of Cinematography) in Moscow. He came to London in 1982 where he continues to live and work as a filmmaker. Kasim has taught film direction and cinematography in Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan and the UK.

In the summer of 2003, he co-founded the Independent Film and TV College with Iraqi-born filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi, the first independent film school in Iraq. Their aim was to help a new generation of Iraqi filmmakers to find their voice and to give them the means to tell their stories on the screen. The College’s students produced 21 films and went on to win prizes at Arab and international festivals before closing in 2013.

He directed and organised two inter-city film festivals in Iraq: Documentary Film Festival in 2011 and the Baghdad Eye Human Rights Film Festival in 2012.

His filmography includes Amid the Alien Corn (1990), Naji Al Ali: An Artist with Vision (2000), Surda Checkpoint (2005), Wings of the Soul (2011), and Whispers of the Cities (2014). His most recent film, Mirrors of Diaspora, was released in 2018.

 

 


 

Supported by: BP or not BP? & Dar Al-Salam Association