Programs Calendar Films

Hiba Bassem, a young woman from Kirkuk, returns to Baghdad after the war to finish her film studies at the Institute of Fine Arts. In Kirkuk, the Arab Hiba and her family had lived in harmony with the Kurds, but the war had changed all that and prompted the move to Baghdad. She is in the first class of film and TV students to submit their graduation films. The film is a diary of her year, as she struggles to finish her studies in the semi-destroyed city of Baghdad, find a place to live, find a job, deal with family problems and above all survive. This film has won a New Horizon Silver Award at the Al Jazeera International Film Festival in Doha in 2006, and a Golden Award at the Rotterdam Arab Film Festival in 2006.

Hiba Bassem was born in Baghdad in 1982, but her family moved to Kirkuk, where she grew up.  She returned to Baghdad to study cinema at the Institute of Fine Arts. This film, her first, was completed as part of a documentary course at the Independent Film & Television College in Baghdad.