IRAQ'S INVISIBLE BEAUTY
Genre
Documentary
Running time
90 minutes
Year
2023
Language
Arabic and English
Country
Iraq, Belgium and France
Director
Sahim Omar Kalifa, Jurgen Buedts
Bio
Producer
Jurgen Buedts
Cast
Latif Al Ani
Scriptwriter
Sahim Omar Kalifa, Jurgen Buedts
Latif al-Ani, known as the father of Iraqi photography , began his career taking pictures for the in-house magazine at Iraq Petroleum Company in the ‘50s, recording the emergence of a booming modern Iraq. Now 86, he continued through successive regimes to make images of the country’s exquisite heritage, including many places that have since been destroyed by war. Encouraged in recent years by belated recognition from the West as a major photographer, he travels for this emotional documentary through his tragically ravaged country, seeking out the subjects he once photographed and sharing his unique archive and his stories with the people there now. Many can hardly believe the Iraq he captured really existed.
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