Country: Canada
Year: 2007
Duration: 34'
A mid-1960s wedding reception captured on Super-8 film. Narrow ties, “In Baghdad Twist shadows and reflections of family photographs
bouffant hairdos, flickering images of a joyful couple and smiling guests.
A band plays and people fill the dance floor to do the latest craze: the
twist. It could be anywhere, but this is Baghdad. And for the city’s
Jewish community, it is an evening of joy during a prolonged period
of persecution. Within a few years, most of the wedding guests pictured
in the film will have fled the city, never to return.
and home-movies mingle with archival footage from the twenties to
the sixties. Private and public archives co-exist. My mother’s stories
of life in Baghdad and flashes of joyful moments are constantly
juxtaposed with others documenting the situation that led to the
exile of a Jewish community. This film is a poetic meditation on how
memory is recalled, shared, and constructed from one generation
to another.”
Biography
film director
Joe Balass
Joe Balass (Baghdad, Iraq, 1966), after escaping from Iraq with his family at the age of four, he eventually settled in Canada. He lives in Montreal, where he works as a freelance editor, photographer and cameraman and operates the film production company Compass Productions Inc. He shot a number of award-winning films and videos, including Funhouse, Caroline, Tattoo Needle Pricks, and On a Very Violet Night in the Appartements Daphne which won a Gold Apple at the New England Film and Video Festival in Oakland. He produced and directed Nana, George & Me in 1998 and The Devil in the Holy Water in 2002. In 2006 he directed the short feature Dernier mots.
FILMOGRAFIA
On a Very Violet Night in the Appartements Daphne (cm, 1995), Nana, George & Me (doc., mm, 1997), The Devil in the Holy Water (Il diavolo nell’acqua santa, doc., 2002), Dernier mots (cm, 2006), Baghdad Twist (doc., mm, 2007).
Cast
& Credits
regia, soggetto/director, story Joe Balass
montaggio/film editing Annie Jean
suono/sound David Ballard
produttore/producer Germaine Ying Gee Wong
produzione, vendita all’estero/production, world sales National Film Board of Canada
montaggio/film editing Annie Jean
suono/sound David Ballard
produttore/producer Germaine Ying Gee Wong
produzione, vendita all’estero/production, world sales National Film Board of Canada