Homeland: Iraq Year Zero

Homeland: Iraq Year Zero is a monumental accomplishment, a two-part, five-and-a-half hour documentary following the life of everyday Iraqis before and after the 2003 American invasion. In February 2002 Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture daily life as his country prepared for war. He concentrated on family and friends, including his 12-year-old nephew, Haidar, as they went about their daily lives, which had come to include planning for shortages of food, water and power. When Fahdel resumed filming in 2003, two weeks after the invasion, daily activities had come to a near standstill, the city was overrun with foreign soldiers, and many areas of Baghdad had been closed off to ordinary citizens. Fahdel’s epic yet intimate Homeland: Iraq Year Zero paints a compelling portrait of people struggling to survive while their civilization, dating back to ancient times, is destroyed around them.