London, just before Christmas: The strong-willed architect AMAL – on the run from her ex-husband – works at Café Abu Nawas, which belongs to a Kurdish activist and is a popular meeting place for Iraqis in exile. Her friends, the poet TAUFIQ and the IT specialist MUHANAD, come by almost every day. Taufiq has been taking care of his nephew NASSEER since his brother’s death, but he is powerless to watch his nephew change under the influence of radical Islamist preacher Sheikh YASSIN, as Nasseer begins to rebel against him as an atheist. Muhanad, on the other hand, left Baghdad only recently to escape the threat that homosexuals face there. But even here and in front of his friends, he doesn’t dare to publicly stand by his English lover. The small community is in danger when Amal’s ex-husband appears in London and Sheikh Yassin simultaneously seduces Taufiq’s nephew Nasseer to take action against the “godless” in Café Abu Nawas.

2019, fiction, 105’, written by Furat al-Jamil and Samir, directed by Samir, produced by Joël Jent for Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion, in coproduction with Coin Film (Germany), Ipso Facto Productions (UK), Art City Productions (Iraq)

Awards
Swiss Film Award, Best Film Editing 2020 / 24th Arabian Sights Film Festival Washington, DC – Audience Award 2019 / 55. Solothurner Filmtage, Prix du Public 2020

Festivals (a selection)

Locarno Festival 2019 / Festival du Film Français d’Helvétie 2019 / International Hofer Filmtage 2019 / Weltfilmtage Thusis / Iraqisms Beirut 2019 / Arabian Sights Film Festival Washington DC 2019 / Black Nights Film Festival 2019 / Ventana Sur 2019 / Cairo IFF 2019 / Palm Springs International Film Festival 2020 / Solothurner Filmtage 2020 / Sonoma International Film Festival 2020 / Belgrade International Film Festival 2020 / 20th Arab Film Festival Rotterdam 2020 / Int. Film Festival Freistadt 2020 / 3rd Seattle Arab Film Festival 2020 / 11th Malmö Arab Film Festival 2020 / 16th Arabisches Filmfestival Tübingen 2020