''Shadow in Baghdad'' is a 2013 documentary film directed by

Duki Dror Zadok "Duki” Dror ( he, דוקי (צדוק) דרור), (born 1963) is an independent Israeli filmmaker whose films explore issues of migration, identity and displacement. Biography Zadok (Duki) Dror was born in Tel Aviv. In the early 1950s, ...

. The film chronicles the story of Linda Abdul Aziz Menuhin, an Israeli citizen who fled her native Iraq in the 1970s, and her connection with a young Iraqi journalist who reaches out to her in an effort to help her trace the disappearance of her father in Iraq shortly after she fled the country. The film takes place between

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

. The film was first released in Haifa Film Festival and was one of the reasons that led to the rise of public interest in

and around world, in the story of the disappearance of Jews from Arab lands. The film was screened in the

US Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library i ...

in Washington with the opening of the exhibition of the

Iraqi Jewish Archive The Iraqi Jewish Archive is a collection of 2,700 books and tens of thousands of historical documents from Iraq's Jewish community found by the United States Army in the basement of Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters during the US invasio ...

in the National Archive.

Synopsis

''Shadow in Baghdad'' opens with Menuhin, a freelance journalist for Arabic-language news outlets, crossing from Israel into Jordan in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to vote in Iraq's 2010 presidential elections. Though Menuhin begins the day optimistic about her ability to participate in the elections as an Iraqi, she is held by the Iraqi authorities at the poll station until the Jordanian security services intervene. Upon returning to Israel, Menuhin blogs about her experiences in Jordan and is then contacted by an Iraqi journalist who takes interest in her story and that of her father, Yaakoub Abdul Aziz, who disappeared in Iraq decades earlier. As the connection between the two journalists deepen, they delve further and further into Menuhin's past, as well as that of the Iraqi-Jewish community, in an attempt to find clues as to what may have happened to her father. As the two struggle to pick up traces of her father, the Iraqi journalist takes to the streets of Baghdad, combing the Al Musbah district where Menuhin once lived with her family. Meanwhile, in Israel, Menuhin also pays visits to former members of the Iraqi-Jewish community of Baghdad, those who knew her father before themselves fleeing for Israel, to try and better understand the circumstances under which her father would have disappeared.{{cite web, url=http://www.independent.com/news/2014/jan/29/shadow-baghdad/, title=SBIFF Filmmaker Interviews: Duki Dror, Shadow in Baghdad, publisher=Santa Barbara Independent

References

External links

Shadow in Baghdad official website

Arab, Jew, and Identity in Israel – LA Review of Books

Shadow in Baghdad – Duki Dror interview on Royim Olam