Abbas Fahdel

Abbas Fahdel (Arabic عباس فاضل) is an Iraqi-French film director, screenwriter and film critic, born in Babylon, Iraq.

He moved to France when he was 18 years-old to studie cinema. He was still a student when the Iran-Iraq war broke out. Motivated by a kind of romantic patriotism, he returned to Iraq and volunteered, or so he thought, to "defend progressist Iraq against the threat of Iranian fundamentalist mullahs". But reality was more complicated. He thus discovers that nothing is romantic about war. He also discovers the true nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime. As a result, he flees Iraq and returns to France, where he has settled ever since and where he pursued his studies in cinema at the Sorbonne University until Ph.D (doctorate).

It is only in January 2002 that he returns to Iraq, with a French passport. This return is the subject of the documentary film "Back to Babylon (film)", which he films in Iraq and in which he asks himself: "What have my childhood friends become? How have their lives changed? What would my life have been like if I hadn't chosen to build my destiny elsewhere?" The country's dramatic situation is the background of this introspective investigation.

One year later, in February 2003, when a new war seems imminent, Abbas Fahdel returns to Iraq with the intention of filming his family and friends, and the superstitious hope of protecting them against the dangers threatening them. When the war breaks, he returns to France and looses all contact with his family. Two months later, he returns to Iraq and discovers a country shaken by violence, the nightmare of dictatorship replaced by chaos, but a country where, nonetheless, everything remains possible: the best or the worse. This historical moment is the theme of his second documentary film, "We Iraqis", in which he reasserts his sense of belonging and his commitment.

In 2008, he directed the feature film "Dawn of the World", a war-drama in which he gives an unexpected account of the multiple impacts of the Gulf Wars and how they have dramatically damaged an area known to be the geographic location of the biblical Garden of Eden.

Filmography

*2008: "Dawn of the World"
*2004: "We Iraqis"
*2002: "Back to Babylon (film)

Short films:
*"Things in the shadow"
*"Weegee’s World"
*"Sunday at a suburban café"

Awards

* [http://www.prix-scenariste.org/GPMS/editions_precedentes.html Grand Prix for the best scriptwriter] for "Dawn of the World"
* Best Script Award (Trophée du Premier Scénario), Centre National de la Cinématographie, for "Dawn of the World"
* Mention of the Jury, 15th African, Asian and Latin merican Film Festival, Milano, Italy, 2005, for "We Iraqis"

ee also

*Cinema of Iraq
*Iraqi culture

External links

*imdb name|id=3035371|name=Abbas Fahdel
* [http://www.commeaucinema.com/personne=abbas-fahdel,94743.html Abbas Fahdel at Commeaucinema] Fr
* [http://www.commeaucinema.com/photos=94743.html Photos gallery]