THE SITUATION
Year: 2006
USA: Shadow Distribution
Cast: Connie Nielsen, Damian Lewis, Mido Hamada, John Slattery, Tom McCarthy, Mahmoud El Lozy, SaÏd Amadis, Nasser Memarzia, Omar Berdouni, Driss Roukh, Shaun Evans, Cobi Mohammed, Mohammed Moutawakil, Mahmoudi M'barek, Salaheddine Debab, Mehdi Amalou, Fatiha Watili, Cherine Amar, Hamid Basket, Zenati Badredine, Raqba Amine, Jaouad Boughaba, Zakaria Attifi, Mohammed Taleb, Abdelhak Lazali, Karam Ghazi, Imad Rechiche, Hicham Immounsi, Mohammed Attifi, Dan Murphy, Wendell Steavenson, Youssef Brittel, Khadija Kanouni, Zidani Nabil, Latifa Aboudi, Saida Nhili, Nezha Ait Moumen, Sean Gullette, Jamal Laababsi, Mehdi Jabori, Mehdi Jenani, Nezha Regragui, Khalid M'rimi, Abdelouahab Mouhaddine, Jayce Newton, Mehdi Wakass, Mounir Benfares, Peter Eyre, Naciri Hamid, Bourhaba, Ali Hriouech, Daniel Mulligan, Fadila Boussekssou
Director: Philip Haas
Country: USA
Languages: English / Arabic (English subtitles)
USA: 106 mins
USA Release Date: 9 February 2007 (Limited Release - Los Angeles)
USA Release Date: 2 February 2007 (Limited Release - New York)
US Distributor
Synopsis
Combining elements of thriller, romance, and war movie, THE SITUATION, set exclusively in Iraq and the first U.S. feature film to deal with the occupation, dramatizes one of the countless human stories that lie behind the headlines of the current war.
Samarra, Iraq. Two young Iraqi boys are attempting to cross a bridge after evening curfew, when they come across a band of American soldiers who deny them passage. Neither group speaks the other's language, and the confusion quickly leads to provocation. The boys are thrown over the bridge, and one of them drowns. The incident sets off a chain of events that exposes the deep rifts among the Iraqis in Samarra and results in yet another cycle of violence between the insurgents and the corrupt Iraqi police.
Anna Molyneux (Connie Nielsen) is an American journalist who decides to write a story about the assassination of an Iraqi leader whom she admires. At the same time she is pulling away from a relationship with Dan (Damian Lewis), an American intelligence official who is in Baghad and thinks the war can be won with hearts and minds. Instead she finds herself moving closer to Zaid (Mido Hamada), a young Iraqi photographer who shows her there are people, rather than sides, in the conflict. As she tries to make sense of the half-truths of Iraq, she gets caught up in the violence and finds her life in danger when she is kidnapped.
Filmed in Morocco and scripted by a journalist who has reported from the thick of the conflict, THE SITUATION is an unflinching, undiluted dramatization of the war in Iraq. The story isn't ripped from the headlines. Rather, it's a chance to look behind them.