Iraq International Awards(2023)

Take Off(ml)

A group of Malayali nurses stranded in Iraq, must survive their capture by the extremists and reach out to the rescue team headed by the Indian government.

Women's Day(lv)

A female boxing tournament in honour of Women’s day is held. The athletes gather in a high school gym and test each other's limits while their all-male trainers heckle from the sidelines and enjoy the tumbling of under-age cheerleaders, showing the grace and irony of a national holiday celebrating women.

Curveball(de)

Although he already has searched Iraq unsuccessfully for weapons of mass destruction as a member of a UN mission, German bio-weapons expert Arndt Wolf is still obsessed with the idea that Saddam Hussein is hiding something. Nobody around him is interested in this topic any more. This changes abruptly when an Iraqi asylum seeker claims to have been involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons. The German Federal Intelligence Service summons Dr. Wolf to ascertain the legitimacy of the claims made by the informant, who has been given the code name “Curveball”.

Under Poisoned Skies(en)

Gas flaring has long been known to be both a major polluter and a serious health hazard. In Iraq, it's ruining ordinary people's lives, leaving communities ravaged by abnormally high levels of cancer. With oil giants like BP using a loophole to avoid reporting emissions, and governmental promises to end the practice ringing hollow, what will it take to eradicate toxic pollution from Iraq's skies?

Mesocafé(en)

A few weeks before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an underground blogger risks his life by travelling from Baghdad to London to campaign for the lifting of UN Sanctions on Iraq. As political intrigue thwarts his heartfelt attempts to highlight the suffering of his people under the sanctions, he takes refuge at Mesocafé, a little Baghdad in West London. With their Arab, Assyrian, Jewish and Kurdish heritage, members of the Iraqi community allow him into their lives, sharing with him their stories and dreams. It is here that he meets the beautiful Bisan.

A Father's Diary(en)

Hassan and Mario are neighbors. They have raised their daughters, Dina and Isabella together, supporting each other through tough times. When Hassan, faces the challenges of modern life, both inside and outside the home, his reactions propel a series of events that threatens everything he holds dear. When his daughter Dina becomes more than good friends, a life partner, with her best friend Isabella, hard decisions have to be made.

Accidental Anarchist(en)

Carne Ross was a government highflyer. A career diplomat who believed Western Democracy could save us all. But working inside the system he came to see its failures, deceits and ulterior motives. He felt at first hand the corruption of power. After the Iraq war Carne became disillusioned, quit his job and started searching for answers.

Standard Operating Procedure(en)

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The Tiger and the Snow(it)

Love and injury in time of war. Attilio de Giovanni teaches poetry in Italy. He has a romantic soul, and women love him. But he is in love with Vittoria, and the love is unrequited. Every night he dreams of marrying her, in his boxer shorts and t-shirt, as Tom Waits sings. Vittoria travels to Iraq with her friend, Fuad, a poet; they are there with the second Gulf War breaks out. Vittoria is injured. Attilio must get to her side, and then, as war rages around him, he must find her the medical care she needs. In war, does love conquer all?

Turtles Can Fly(ku)

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

Badland(en)

Jerry (Jamie Draven) was an idealist when he served in the first Gulf War. But when he was later deployed to Iraq, Jerry was an older man, a father of three and embittered by broken promises and unfulfilled desires. When Jerry returns from Iraq he has been transformed by horrors that cannot be forgiven. He lives a life of poverty, his children afraid of him and his wife, Nora (Vinessa Shaw), unsympathetic and unhappy. When Jerry discovers that Nora has betrayed him, his anger and despair drive him to commit an act so heinous and irreversible that nothing he had experienced in combat could have prepared him for.

Enfants de Daech, les damnés de la guerre(fr)

Amira & Sam(en)

Sam, a soldier who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, meets Amira when he visits her uncle, Bassam, who had served as Sam's Iraqi translator. Bassam and Sam have a special bond due to their time together in the war. Initially Amira does not trust him because he was an American soldier and her brother was killed by a bomb from American troops in the war. Sam's cousin, Charlie, asks Sam to help him with illegal hedge funds unbeknownst to Sam at the time. Amira is staying with her uncle Bassam since her father died. She sells bootlegged films on the street corner but is forced to stay with Sam after getting busted; immigration officials begin pursuing her. As the film progresses, Sam and Amira fall in love.

Three Kings(en)

A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that's destined to change everything.

Fahrenheit 9/11(en)

Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the Valley of Elah(en)

A career officer and his wife work with a police detective to uncover the truth behind their son's disappearance following his return from a tour of duty in Iraq.

Redacted(en)

A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.

The Mark of Cain(en)

After a bomb kills their company commander in Iraq, British soldiers Treacle and Shane are ordered to round up suspects and use torture on the detainees. Back home, the press gets the story and the pair achieves instant infamy.

The Four Horsemen(en)

Four high school football stars enlist in the Marines and head off to fight in the war in Iraq. When one of them is killed and another wounded, they return home only to find is extremely difficult to pick up the threads of their old lives. The memories of events in Iraq combined with the lack of public support pushes many of these men to the breaking point.

Sisters Apart(de)

Rojda, a native of Iraqi Kurdistan and a soldier in the German army, travels to a refugee camp in Greece where she manages to meet her mother, who has bad news about her sister Dilan.