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''The Boys from Baghdad High'', also known as ''Baghdad High'', is a British-American-French television documentary film. It was first shown in the United Kingdom at the 2007
Sheffield Doc/Fest
Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England.
The Festival includes film sc ...
, before airing on
BBC Two on 8 January 2008. It also aired in many other countries including France, Australia, the United States, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. It documents the lives of four
Iraqi schoolboys of different religious or ethnic backgrounds over the course of one year in the form of a
video diary
A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog (), is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded i ...
. The documentary was filmed by the boys themselves, who were given video cameras for the project.
Directed and produced by Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter of Renegade Pictures and StoryLabTV, for the United Kingdom's
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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,
HBO in the United States, and the Franco-German network
Arte
Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture.
It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...
, ''The Boys from Baghdad High'' was produced by Alan Hayling and Karen O'Connor for the BBC, Hans Robert Eisenhauer for Arte, and
Sheila Nevins
Sheila Nevins (born April 6, 1939) is an American television producer and head of MTV Documentary Films division of MTV Studios. Previously, Nevins was the President of HBO Documentary Films. She has produced over 1,000 documentary films for HB ...
for HBO.
''The Boys from Baghdad High'' received high viewership when it initially aired in the UK, and was reviewed favourably in the media. It was named the Best News and Current Affairs Film at the European Independent Film Festival, won the Premier Prize at the
Sandford St. Martin Trust Awards, and was nominated for awards at two film festivals. The documentary also received the ''
Radio Times'' Readers Award, and a nomination for the
Amnesty International 2008 Television Documentary and Docudrama UK Media Award.
Synopsis
The film brings together the
video diaries recorded by four friends and students at the Tariq bin Ziad High School for Boys in
Zayouna Zayouna c’est la plus belle. ( point) 12 Apr 2003 It is a mixed-race, upper middle-class area bordering the affluent Karrada suburb.
Organisations based in Zayouna include the Iraq Football Association; the "Baghdad Bulletin", Iraq's English-lang ...
, a mixed-race, middle-class area in the
Karrada
Karrada ( ar, كرّادة ''Karrāda'') is an upper-class district of the city of Baghdad, Iraq. It has a mixed population of Muslims and Christians. It is one of the most religiously diverse areas of the city, and is one of the two major distri ...
suburb of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
, Iraq. Entering their final year in 2006, each has high expectations for the year ahead and hope to graduate so they can have a chance to attend university. At the same time, the boys must also deal with the increasing sectarian violence that is starting to extend into Karrada. They face the threats of roadside bombings, the hassles of security checkpoints on their way to school, frequent curfews, the constant presence of American
Apache helicopter
The Boeing AH-64 Apache () is an American twin-turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a crew of two. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night visi ...
s overhead, and the deterioration of their neighbourhood which becomes rife with assassinations, muggings and kidnappings. Many of their fellow students, unmotivated and academically underperforming, are absent from school.
Ali Shadman is one of the few
Kurdish people remaining in Baghdad. His family are struggling financially and resort to siphoning petrol from their car to run their back-up generator when the power grid fails. When the generator breaks down one night, Ali begins to wonder why he is fixing it against a backdrop of gunfire, instead of studying in peace. Another night, he reports the neighbourhood's news but explains there is nothing to speak of other than the usual explosions, violence, and death. Anmar Refat, a
Syriac Christian
Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...
, tries to remain philosophical and hopes that armed gangs will not attack the school. His family, however, are more nervous about any nearby gunfire, as their Christian beliefs increase the threat to their lives if anyone were to find out about them. Anmar has a girlfriend, whom he can contact only via his mobile phone, but he has not heard from her in several days, leaving him worried about whether she has found another boyfriend, or has been hurt in the violence. Hayder Khalid, a
Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mo ...
Muslim, hopes to become a famous singer-songwriter. He frequently downloads music videos of English-language pop music so he can learn popular English songs and dance moves. Mohammad Raed, a
Sunni Muslim, is the
class clown
''Class Clown'' is the fourth album released by American comedian George Carlin. It was recorded on May 27, 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, and released in September.
Background
At the time Carlin was rel ...
at school, who prefers playing sports and fooling around with his friends to studying. Unaware of his behaviour at school, his mother believes he is hard-working, self-sufficient and mature, and believes he will graduate and go to university.
Halfway through the school year, Ali's family moves to the more peaceful
Kurdish region in Northern Iraq but after living there for several months, Ali says that he is homesick and misses the action and noise of Baghdad. Mohammad, feeling lonely, "adopts" a bird with a broken wing and a mouse he finds in the house. This brings him some comfort, but his mother later demands that he get rid of the mouse as she does not want "vermin" in the house. Mohammad's family rejoice when
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
is sentenced, and feel that his later execution was justified, as to do otherwise would have made the Iraqi people look weak. Conversely, Anmar's family is upset at his execution, as they feel that the people who came into power were no better than Hussein was. Hyder's mother says that many Iraqi people were hopeful about the arrival of American forces, and that it is wrong to blame America for all of the problems in Iraq. She notes that the bloodshed has yet to stop as the Sunni continues to kill the Shiite, and vice versa. As the film continues, Hyder's family loses its income and they start to sell their furniture to earn extra money.
At the end of the year, the boys must pass seven final exams to graduate. Anmar, Hyder and Ali each fail two subjects, and are given the option to retake the exams. Anmar passes the retakes and aspires to study English literature in college, and his family decide to move to the safer region of Arbul now that he has graduated. Hyder also retakes his exams and passes, but his family can no longer afford to pay for the university fees. Ali chooses not to retake the exams, and his family leave Iraq. Mohammad fails four subjects and must repeat his senior year. He chooses to do so at a different school while working at his uncle's scooter repair shop. As the documentary closes, it notes that during the year of filming, two of the boys' classmates were killed, six were kidnapped, and seventy-five left Iraq.
Production
Concept
''The Boys from Baghdad High'' was co-produced and co-directed by Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter. Before working on the film, O'Mahoney had been a
United Nations peacekeeper in Bosnia and an attorney in the Netherlands, and had directed the 2006 documentary ''How to Plan a Revolution'', which profiled two young activists who attempted to remove the Azerbaijani government from power by staging an
"Orange" revolution. He had also worked for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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