MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY

Year: 2006
USA: Zeitgeist Films
Cast: Dr Riyadh, Peter Towndrow (Australian private contractor), Carlos Valenzuela (UN Elections Support), Capt Kris Scarcliff (US Army, Civil Affairs)
Director: Laura Poitras
Country: USA
Languages: Arabic /English / Kurdish (English subtitles)
USA: 90 mins
USA Release Date: 4 August 2006 (Limited Release - New York)
US Distributor

Synopsis

Working alone in Iraq over eight months, director/cinematographer Laura Poitras creates an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation.

Her principal focus is Dr Riyadh, an Iraqi medical doctor, father of six and Sunni political candidate. An outspoken critic of the occupation, he is equally passionate about the need to establish democracy in Iraq, arguing that Sunni participation in the January 2005 elections is essential. Yet all around him, Dr Riyadh sees only chaos, as his waiting room fills each day with patients suffering the physical and mental effects of ever-increasing violence.

Dramatically interwoven into the personal journey of Dr Riyadh is the landscape of the US military occupation, with Australian private security contractors, American journalists and the UN officials who orchestrate the elections.

Unfolding like a narrative drama, MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY follows the agonizing predicament and gradual descent of one man caught in the tragic contradictions of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and its project to spread democracy in the Middle East.

MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY features an original music score by world-renowned Iraqi singer/composer Kadhum Al Sahir, the top-selling singer in the Arab world today.