Iraqi director Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji returns to the Festival with a heartbreaking epic tale about war orphans trying to survive in a completely destroyed city.
With Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream, director Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji (In My Mother’s Arms TIFF ’11; The Journey, TIFF ’17) and writer Shahad Ameen tackle not only the resilience of children orphaned by war, but also the cruelty of the adults who created this world for them.
From Chum Chum (Youssef Husham Al-Thahabi), the candid asthmatic child who dreams of Gilgamesh (an epic tale from Mesopotamia about a hero’s awakening to wisdom), to his older sister (Lojin Star Naimal) who tries to earn money in a cabaret, to the reckless Moody (Hussein Raad Zuwayr) who has taken them under his wing, we are confronted with the situation of youth left to their own devices in a world devastated by adults.
Moody has to work for a militiaman who hides weapons and carries out attacks, while Chum Chum tries his best to study with a schoolteacher they all go to for food. Where Moody dreams of the Netherlands as a land of exile (the director found refuge there in 1995), Chum Chum hopes to drown himself in the lake in order to find his missing parents. Poetry is born of tragedy.
Beneath the bombs, the hunger, and the insalubrity, humanity, resistance, and fighting spirit remain in these children, who find in their daily survival the means to move forward. Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream is a tale of grief and hope of a youth in the making.
CLAIRE DIAO
Screenings
Scotiabank 13
Scotiabank 14
Scotiabank 10