Son of Babylon
Film poster
Directed byMohamed Al-Daradji
Written byMohamed Al-Daradji
Mithal Ghazi
Jennifer Norridge
Produced byIsabelle Stead
Atia Al-Daradji
Mohamed Al-Daradji
StarringShazada Hussein
Yasser Talib
CinematographyMohamed Al-Daradji
Edited byMohamed Al-Daradji & Pascale Chavance
Music byKad Achouri
Release date
  • January 2010 (2010-01)
Running time
90 minutes[1]
CountryIraq
LanguageArabic & Kurdish
Budget$2 million

Son of Babylon (Arabic: ابن بابل) is a 2010 Iraqi drama film directed, produced and co-written by Mohamed Al-Daradji, Variety's Middle Eastern Filmmaker of the year 2010.

The film was developed through The Sundance Institute and was selected as Iraq's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards,[2] but it didn't make the final shortlist.[3]

Plot

The film is set initially in Northern Iraq, 2003, two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy begrudgingly follows in the shadow of his grandmother. On hearing news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, she is determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed's father, who never returned from the Gulf war in 1991. From the mountains of Kurdistan to the sands of Babylon, they hitch rides from strangers and cross paths with fellow pilgrims, on all too similar journeys. Struggling to understand his grandmother's search, Ahmed follows in the forgotten footsteps of a father he never knew.

Cast

Awards

See also

References

  1. ^ "Berlinale: Son of Babylon". Berlinale. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
  2. ^ "Son of Babylon selected as Iraq's entry for Oscar race". Screendaily. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
  3. ^ "9 Foreign Language Films Continue to Oscar Race". oscars.org. Retrieved 19 January 2011.

External links

Iraqi submissions for Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
Categories