[English below]
Dragi svi,
pozivamo vas u četvrtak, 30.04., u 19h u MaMu, kada u suradnji sa Živim Ateljeom organiziramo projekciju filma Iraqi Odyssey (2014), autobiografskog dokumentarca švicarsko-iračkog redatelja Samira (rođen 1955. u Bagdadu). Uvod u film, kao i neformalni razgovor nakon projekcije, vodit će naš prijatelj i kolega Nawar Ghanim Murad, otvarajući prostor za refleksiju i zajedničko promišljanje pogledanog.
Ratovi, migracije i političke krize često su reducirani na apstraktne podatke, lišene konteksta i ljudskih iskustava. Iza svake te brojke je jedan život, izbrisan pojednostavljenim narativom. Kao protutežu ovoj praksi Iraqi Odyssey donosi rijetku, intimnu perspektivu redateljeve obitelji raspršene diljem svijeta, prateći kroz njihova iskustva kako su diktatura i emigracija obilježili živote Iračana od 1950-ih do danas.
Film razbija dominantne slike “udaljenih sukoba”: kroz osobna svjedočanstva ne samo da prikazuje posljedice političkih lomova, nego i njihovu dugotrajnost, načine na koje se nasilje nastavlja kroz raseljavanje, prekide obiteljskih veza i stalnu neizvjesnost života u dijaspori. Time vlastitu obiteljsku priču širi u širi politički okvir, povezujući je s globalnim režimima migracije, poviješću intervencija i strukturama koje prouzrokuju gubitak doma.
Iraqi Odyssey tako otvara prostor za razmišljanje o dijaspori kao političkom stanju i o životu između režima i granica. U kontekstu sve restriktivnijih europskih migracijskih politika, koje granice pretvaraju u zone kontrole i nasilja, ove priče prestaju biti “tamo negdje” — one postaju dio iste političke stvarnosti koja oblikuje i naš prostor, pozivajući nas na izravnije oblike odgovornosti.
Jezik: arapski
Titlovi: engleski
Trajanje: 163″
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[English version]
Dear all,
We invite you this Thursday, April 30th, at 7 PM to MaMa, where in collaboration with Živi Atelje we are organizing a screening of the film Iraqi Odyssey (2014), an autobiographical documentary by Swiss-Iraqi director Samir (born in 1955 in Baghdad). The introduction to the film, as well as an informal discussion after the screening, will be led by our friend and colleague Nawar Ghanim Murad, opening up space for reflection and collective thinking about what we have watched.
Wars, migration, and political crises are often reduced to abstract data, stripped of context and human experience. Behind each of these numbers is a life, erased by simplified narratives. As a counterpoint to this practice, Iraqi Odyssey offers a rare, intimate perspective on the director’s family scattered across the world, following their experiences to show how dictatorship and emigration have shaped the lives of Iraqis from the 1950s to the present.
The film breaks dominant images of “distant conflicts”: through personal testimonies, it not only portrays the consequences of political upheavals but also their long duration, the ways in which violence continues through displacement, the disruption of family ties, and the constant uncertainty of life in the diaspora. In doing so, it expands a personal family story into a broader political framework, connecting it to global migration regimes, histories of intervention, and the structures that produce the loss of home.
Iraqi Odyssey thus opens up space for thinking about diaspora as a political condition and about life between regimes and borders. In the context of increasingly restrictive European migration policies, which turn borders into zones of control and violence, these stories cease to be “somewhere out there” — they become part of the same political reality that shapes our own space, calling us toward more direct forms of responsibility.
Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English
Duration: 163 minutes
