Abbas Fahdel

Based in France since the age of 18 years, he studied cinema at the Sorbonne University until Ph.D. • Illustration — Abbas Fadhel on the set of Dawn of the World In January 2002, he returned to Iraq with a French passport and filmed a documentary film, Back to Babylon, in which he asked himself: "What have my childhood friends become? How have their lives changed? What would my life have been like if I hadn't chosen to build my destiny elsewhere?" The country's dramatic situation is the background of this introspective investigation. One year later, in February 2003, when a new war seems imminent, Abbas Fadhel returned to Iraq with the intention of filming his family and friends, and the superstitious hope of protecting them against the dangers threatening them. When the war started, he returned to France and lost all contact with his family. Two months later, he again returned to Iraq and discovered a country shaken by violence, the nightmare of dictatorship replaced by chaos, but a country where, nonetheless, everything remains possible: the best or the worse. This historical moment is the theme of his second documentary film, We Iraqis. In 2008, he directed the feature film Dawn of the World, a war-drama in which he gives an unexpected account of the multiple impacts of the Gulf Wars and how they have dramatically damaged an area known to be the geographic location of the biblical Garden of Eden. In 2015, Fadhel premiered Homeland: Iraq Year Zero, a monumental documentary of 334 minutes tackling life in Iraq before the American Invasion of Iraq and during the subsequent Iraq War.

• Year — English Title — Original Title — Notes • 2002 — Back to Babylon — العودة إلى بابل — Documentary film • 2004 — We Iraqis — نحن العراقيون — Jury Mention at the 15th African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, Milan, Italy, 2005 • 2008 — Dawn of the World — فجر العالم — Premiere at the Busan International Film Festival • 2015 — Homeland: Iraq Year Zero — وطن: العراق السنة صفر — Premiere ar the Visions du réel, 2015 • 2018 — Yara — يارا • 2019 — Bitter Bread — حقّ الخُبزات • 2022 — Tales of the Purple House — حكايات البيت الأرجواني • 2025 — Tales of the Wounded Land — Pardo for Best Direction at the 78th Locarno Film Festival