The movie "Baghdad Revolts". The story of the Iraqi October demonstrations through the eyes of its sons

For exactly an hour and 6 minutes, Baghdad on Fire takes viewers on a journey to the largest square in the Iraqi capital, where young people have demonstrated for days on end hoping to change the fate of their country.

Baghdad Revolts, an Iraqi-Norwegian production, is the first experience of Norwegian-based Iraqi director Karrar al-Azzawi, and was recently screened at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.

The film has toured many festivals around the world, including the Munich International Documentary Film Festival, the Amman International Festival in its Arab premiere, the OBI Festival in Switzerland, the Nordisk Panorama International Festival in Sweden, and the Vezon Dalmando International Festival in Milan, Italy.

Post-invasion generation

The film begins with a demonstration that gathers a large number of young people, led by a smiling young woman who we soon know is called "Taybeh", but the first thing that catches the eye is the young age of the demonstrators.

Revolutionary movements are mostly led by the younger generation, the younger generations that still carry within them the flame of hope, the desire for change, and have not yet been overwhelmed by the burdens of life, and the habituation and cruelty of reality, generations capable of dreaming of a different tomorrow, but the sons of the revolution barely came out of adolescence, most of them are not more than twenty years old yet.

What brought these Iraqi protests together was that young men and women who grew up in the period following the US invasion of their country at the beginning of the millennium, familiar with daily explosions on their way to and from school, and lived with violence that can flare up within moments, toppling everyone present, and most importantly the absence of political and social stability for many years.

The children of this generation were born and raised in a climate of war and terror, and they saw the worst already, so they killed fear in their hearts, put their lives on their shoulders and went to the field to express their opinion clearly and unequivocally.

The film's camera crept into the stages of the daily demonstrations carried out by young women and men, planning and calling online, then communicating with the leaders of the field, going down, and standing in the face of danger with wide eyes, demanding not only a better life, but a completely different one from what they were imprisoned during throughout their years.

The film leaves viewers to draw their own ideas about the young age of the revolutionaries, but in the third chapter we see a discussion between a member of the older generation and some young women and men, the dialogue shows too clearly the differences between the two generations, which was understandable without this direct message.

Why "Thebes"?

The film opens with the face of the young girl "Taybeh", which makes it necessary to ask the question, why this choice?

It is clear from the events that "Taybeh", a girl who dedicated her life to the revolutionary movement, risks herself in the field on a daily basis, supporting her colleagues and colleagues, protecting their backs, treating their wounds, and collecting donations for them to obtain blankets for the bitter cold they are exposed to while sleeping under the skies of Baghdad.

But what sets Taiba apart from everyone, and probably the reason why director Karrar al-Azzawi chose her as the film's anchor, is her personal story, which represents the story of many girls from Baghdad after the invasion, in that world scattered between ancient values and the culture of war societies.

She was forced to marry an older man before she reached adolescence, so she divorced before she was nineteen years old, after she lived hell in that incident.

Taybeh's life seems as if it were a metaphor for post-invasion Iraq, attempts to get out of a bad situation end in a worse situation, a daily trip to jump from the "pan to the fire", so the heroine of the film decided to break this circle completely and dedicated herself to liberating her country, and bringing it to safety.

"Taybeh" is also an example of the double threats to revolutionaries that are exposed, which are different from the danger that threatens their colleagues, as her status as a female in the field places a different burden on her, but she overcame it to become a leader and not only an ordinary demonstrator, who was absent from the field only when her family was threatened, but she was absent for a short time before returning to advocate for the cause that gave her life.

Corona ended the endeavor

But how did this story end? In fact, it ended with the tragedy that changed the world since 2020, and its effects are still suffering today, the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced millions of people to stay at home to escape a virus that is not visible to the naked eye, but is capable of ending life.

Corona forced the youth of Iraq to return to their homes and bid farewell to the field, so that the story of this generation ended in a way that no one expected, as they did not have the honor of war until victory or defeat.

The film brings down the curtain on the last chapter of this revolutionary movement, the moments when the protesters left the square, but in fact the situation continued at a calmer pace throughout 2020.

"Baghdad Revolts" explored an important chapter of the story of modern Iraq, which may have been lost in the pages of the country's history full of tragedies, which refers us to the importance of documentaries that record moments that the makers of these works saw as worthy of chronicling and returning to the viewer to read them again, perhaps through different eyes.

Technically, the film did not offer anything new, as it is a classic film, which uses footage and dialogues between its film characters, and follows the life of the heroine "Taiba" to take a closer look at these protests, which their owners called the "October Revolution".

"Baghdad Revolts" is Karar al-Azzawi's first feature film, who is currently working on another documentary, Dreaming Souls, which tells the story of two girls with Down syndrome, one from Iraq and another from Norway.