It was actually a journey of all the Iraqis who were looking for a beloved one who they had lost, Mohamed al-Daradji tells Anand Holla As the audience leaves the hall, Mohamed al-Daradji, too, can’t wait to follow suit. After having his films screened here in Doha over the weekend and patiently answering every viewer’s question, the Iraqi-Dutch director looks exhausted. Yet, his eyes heavy with the weight of all that he has seen shine brightly the moment you mention two words dear to him — Iraq, films. “Sometimes, I see the bright side, which is that Iraq isn’t occupied by US forces anymore,” al-Daradji says, looking into the distance, “Iraq has become more independent, has its own government, has its own parliament, and allows its people more freedom. You don’t see American army on Iraq’s streets like you did between 2003 and 2009.” As part of Hekayat Khaleejiya — Stories of Iraq, the Doha Film Institute screened two of the acclaimed filmmaker’s works — Son of Babylon (2009) and In the Sands of Babylon (2013) — over the weekend at the Museum of Islamic Art auditorium. Both films emerge out of the consequences of the evils of Saddam Hussain’s regime and the American occupation of Iraq. Son of Babylon, though, is arguably al-Daradji’s most renowned film. A Kurdish mother Um Ibrahim (Shahzada Hussein) and her grandson Ahmed (Yasser Talib) set off on foot from the North of Iraq to the South; the mother in search of her missing son, the child in search of his father. Ahmed’s father never returned from war and he is not to be found anywhere, in any prison. The tragedy for the duo is that even scouring through the mass graves around Babylon doesn’t help them in confronting their worst fears. Although the film, which unspools like a road trip through the country three weeks after Saddam’s fall, may not have instant relevance to the completely disparate problem now tormenting Iraq, it speaks of a time that perhaps was just as traumatic as now for Iraqis. And al-Daradji knows this. “As for the dark side, we now have a new problem with the emergence of ISIS. What ISIS has done in Iraq is a new occupation, new foreign troops all over the country, and it is barbaric,” he says, softly shaking his head. “Despite everything, sometimes, I believe that the people of Iraq are very united, very strong. And sometimes, I have my doubts on that.” Al-Daradji, who the Variety magazine had feted as Middle Eastern Filmmaker of the year in 2010, allows this state of flux to weave its way into his narratives as well. For instance, while he leaves the ending of the Son of Babylon to the audience, he also lets Ahmed transform readily by what he sees and experiences. Ahmed clings on to his father’s army jacket all through; until in the end he throws it and chooses to play his father’s flute instead. “In the end, I am hopeful of a better future,” says al-Daradji, who believes in making films for Iraqis and sharing their stories, “My focus in Son of Babylon was the journey of a mother and her grandson; the US occupation and the downfall of Saddam’s regime serving as the backdrop. It was actually a journey of all the Iraqis who were looking for a beloved one who they had lost.” For al-Daradji, these stories were extremely personal, too, as he was immensely affected by the chaos back home. “I lost my cousin to the Saddam regime, lost my nephews during the American occupation, and I lost another cousin to a suicide bomber,” Al-Daradji says, “To see people killed, regularly, daily; it was really affecting me. I needed to do something. If I would sit still without doing anything about it, I would go mad. So I need to shout. And my shout comes out as a film.” The ingredients for that shout to trace a nation’s collective journey of finding its loved one, found its way in when al-Daradji was in Tokyo, shooting his first feature Ahlaam (Dreams) in 2003. “On radio, I heard about the discovery of mass graves in Babylon and also about talk of Iraq being divided into three states. I felt upset and angry. A revolution was stirring up inside of me,” he says. It also reminded him of his aunt, who would always be crying, never having recovered from the loss of her son. Borrowing notes from his relationship with his aunt, Al-Daradji decided to make a film that brought together two generations of Iraqis — one neck-deep in misery, and the other marked by a hope for the future. While all the characters in Son of Babylon are real, al-Daradji knew that he first had to choose the grandmother. “I had friends in these villages who took me around. We knocked on several doors, listened to the stories of these women who had witnessed massacres and lost their families. While recounting her story, every woman cried, except this one woman.” In real life, Shehzada Hussein had lost her husband of 22 years and never found him. In the film, her quiet resoluteness though gets thoroughly tested towards the end, when she starts breaking down copiously. As for Yasser Talib, al-Daradji calls finding the boy a “divine moment.” He says, “I was invited to a music concert in a school. Frankly, I didn’t like any of the kids I came across. But while on my way out, I saw this child sitting on the stairs. He was Kurdish. I asked him if he was interested in acting, and he said: You will have to ask my father. I liked the way he answered me, the way he talked.” Once the father consented, al-Daradji began practicing with Talib. “The only problem was that he moved a lot, always fidgeting, never standing still. So an exercise I did with him was simply to tie him up to a chair with a rope. He sat still for eight hours. I think this was one of the reasons that would have made him hate me,” al-Daradji says, smiling. Shot across seven Iraqi provinces with support from seven countries — Iraq, Palestine, UAE, Egypt, France, UK and The Netherlands — Son of Babylon is a devastating tale laced with glimpses of optimism. That’s much like its stunning cinematography that insists on showcasing the beautiful landscapes of a war-torn nation. “It was really difficult to shoot in Iraq back then,” al-Daradji says. The scenes involving mass graves were particularly difficult. “I felt very emotional. Even when I was writing the script, I would see images of skeletons and skulls over and over again,” he says, “We filmed those scenes next to the actual mass graves, out of respect for the actual remains because some were still there as they were unidentified. And of course, all the skeletons shown in the film are fake.” After having filmed everything from a documentary like Iraq: War, Love, God & Madness (2008) to In the Sands of Babylon (2013), which is a companion piece to Son of Babylon, Al-Daradji has taken a hard turn into unravelling the psyche of the suicide bomber. “My upcoming film Journey to God is about a 23-year-old female suicide bomber who blows herself up and kills 28 along with her on a train station in Baghdad,” he says. The film follows the 90 seconds after she dies, where she reflects on what she has done and what she now seeks. “She wishes to meet those people she killed to find out whether she killed them for the right cause or not,” al-Daradji says, “Another film I am working on, Bird of Paradise, is about a woman whose husband and children are killed by a suicide bomber. She gathers children from the streets of Baghdad during the height of sectarian violence in 2006-07, and educates them. That’s because she learns that a child suicide bomber had killed her loved ones.” Al-Daradji believes that understanding the suicide bomber perspective and motivations are integral to get to the root of the problem. He explains, “It’s important to know how they see the world, how they see the other, and not just how we see them. We don’t need to like them but we need to understand them. We must understand why those people think the way they do because at the end of the day, they are human beings, like you and me.” With darkness still looming large over Iraq, what does Al-Daradji think the future holds for his country? “ISIS is the biggest challenge that Iraq has faced. If we can manage to get rid of it, Iraq will become very prosperous.” And what does he see in future? “Peace, Inshallah.”
