Homeland: Iraq Year Zero

Among one of the most essential watches of recent years, Homeland: Iraq Year Zero is a home-movie chronicle of life in Iraq before and after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Filmmaker Abbas Fahdal, who lives in France, visited his family just before the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, and for a year-and-a-half, he filmed daily lives that are very familiar—a summer outing on the river, cartoons on TV, bickering, birthday celebrations. Of course there are also conversations about the impending invasion, and although the war and occupation dominate the atmosphere, this "history in the making" forms only the background to the family chronicle.

It's an inversion of the usual news format as it doesn't zoom in one-sidedly on outbursts of violence. The form of Homeland also runs counter to the news norm. By not being short and concise, but lengthy and digressive, the film remains fascinating throughout its nearly six-hour running time capturing Iraqi life in vivid detail.

Spoken language: Arabic | Subtitles: English