Iraqi film Son of Babylon selected to play at Sundance Film Festival

Son Of Babylon film makes selection

Iraqi filmmaker Mohamed Al-Daradji tells the story of Iraq's hidden genocide in Son of Babylon.

It is 2003 and Saddam Hussein s regime has been toppled. On hearing the news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the south, Ahmed, a young boy and his grandmother, Um-Ibrahim, set out to uncover the fate of the boy's father, one of the many soldiers who never returned home after the 1991 Gulf War. From the mountains of the north to the southern sands of Babylon, as his grandmother struggles to accept an awful truth, Ahmed retraces the footsteps of a father he never knew.

Son of Babylon, binds two generations; the older steeped in suffering; and the younger bearing hope for the future. By choosing to tell the story of a Kurdish mother, and not an Arab, I hope to find empathy between the two cultures that occupy

Iraq. Both have been victims of the chaos and occupation that has engulfed this country, both have suffered, both have lost, and this story will help to unify our understanding. Al-Daradji

The filmmakers are also launching a landmark campaign Iraq s missing . The Iraq ministry of human rights estimates more than 1.5 million people have gone missing over the past 40 years. Human Film hopes the campaign along with Son of Babylon will communicate the extent of the genocide and begin the redirection of resources to identify bodies. I hope it will inspire a high-profile approach to human rights violations that will no longer go unnoticed by the world , states Producer Isabelle Stead.

Son of Babylon will play at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, USA in the World Cinema selection. (21st - 31st January 2010)