Recent events in Iraq inspired me to post the documentary films I made there on the YouTube platform, so perhaps they could reach a wider audience than they do just embedded on this website.
It’s accurate to say that the United States has been at war with Iraq, in one way or another - either militarily or through crushing sanctions - for decades. Decades of the United States using violence in Iraq - the violence of war and the violence of poverty. I feel a heavy sadness when I think of the injustices that have been done in the name of the United States against the people of Iraq, all to satisfy private greed and prejudice, to satisfy whatever anti-human end.
My response to these wars has been to film the civilians caught up in them, to remember who is most at risk when we needlessly go to war, who is most vulnerable, and who is in the line of fire. I don’t really know if it makes any difference, especially as very few people see the films, but it always seemed to me that people wouldn’t go to war so often if they had ever been near one, or if they could somehow understand what it meant.
Please join me on this small, curated journey through Iraq, circa 2003-2005, in the wake of the US invasion. Experience some of the Iraq that I was able to record, and share these experiences with your friends.
This is the 21-minute short documentary, SARI’S MOTHER (2007):
This is the 94-minute feature documentary, IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (2006), which was filmed concurrently with SARI’S MOTHER:
In 2017 I was invited by HKU to conduct a Q&A after a screening of IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS, which HKU have kindly edited and can now serve as the Q&A for this online version: