The work brings together five short films in an anthology of the group's production from the first Gulf War in 1991 to the present day, presenting a complex panorama on the importance of art as a means of expression and protest in contemporary Baghdad. Sajjad Abbas shows artists on guerrilla missions, graffitiing the urban fabric with their anonymous testimony to the everyday violence against the people of Iraq. Ali Eyal composes an intimate and poetic account of the meaning of art in times of war, while Sarah Munaf adopts an ironic, diary tone to comment on the impact new media are having on life and the field of art. Bassim Al Shaker intercalates real images and delicately rendered animation to deal with the trauma of violence and torture. In her own film-essay, Rijin Sahakian asks why she encouraged the group to produce videos at a time when Iraq was becoming the theater of one of the most televised wars in history and a lab for new image technologies that have come to determine the way we live our lives.

Awards