Homeland: Iraq Year Zero

In February 2002 - about a year before the U.S. invasion - Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture everyday life as his country prepared for war. No strangers to war, the Iraqis thought they understood what was coming, and could even manage to be grimly humorous about what they felt would likely be a major and lengthy inconvenience. And then, the war began.

When Fahdel resumed filming in 2003, two weeks after the invasion, daily activities have come to a near standstill, the city is overrun with foreign soldiers, and many areas of Baghdad had been closed off to ordinary citizens. Iraqis endure, seemingly as unwitting as Americans themselves about what further tragedy awaits. Fahdel's epic yet intimate film paints a compelling portrait of people struggling to survive while their civilization, dating back to ancient times, is destroyed around them.

Winner of a Sesterce d'Or at the Festival Visions Du Reel. Winner of a Silver Tanit at the Cathage Film Festival.

"The most significant work of art to come out of the Iraq war."- The Huffington Post