Filmed in Baghdad in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, its cast and crew subject to kidnappings from both sides, Ahlaam is one of the first feature films from post-Saddam Iraq. The war-ravaged city, with its street battles and wrecked buildings, provides an astonishing immediacy to this story about a young woman, Ahlaam, confined to an asylum after seeing her husband kidnapped by Saddam's thugs on their wedding day. Her hospital destroyed in the U.S. bombardment, Ahlaam wanders the streets on what becomes an increasingly nightmarish, hallucinatory odyssey. Meanwhile, her relatives, aided by an idealistic young doctor, search frantically for her amid the chaos. Writer/director/cameraman Mohamed Al-Daradji fled to Holland in 1995, but found himself drawn irresistibly back to his homeland after the fall of Saddam. The debut film he made there is a mature, visually stunning triumph, which will move and haunt audiences long after its end.

Iraq, 2005 / Mohamed Al-Daradji
110 mins