Son of Babylon

Northern Iraq, 2003. Two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy begrudgingly follows in the the shadow of his grandmother. On hearing news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, she is determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed’s father, who never returned from the Gulf war. From the mountains of Kurdistan to the sands of Babylon, they hitch rides from strangers and cross paths with fellow pilgrims, on all too similar journeys. Struggling to understand his grandmother’s search, Ahmed follows in the forgotten footsteps of a father he never knew. This journey will lead the boy to come of age.

Awards

Trailer

Director:

Mohamed was born in Baghdad in 1978 and is co-founder of multi-award winning Human Film, a UK & Netherlands feature film production company.

Mohamed studied Fine Art in Baghdad and then went on to study Film and Television Production at the Media Academy in Hilversem, the Netherlands. During his time in Hilversem, Mohamed worked as a cameraman covering documentaries, news reports and sport events for the TV industry in Holland. Mohamed then travelled to the UK to complete two Master degrees in Cinematography and Directing at the Northern Film School in Leeds, winning the prestigious Kodak Student Award for best commercial in Cinematography.

Following the collapse of Saddam's regime in 2003, Mohamed returned to Iraq to make his first feature film, Ahlaam, an insight into the chaos and confusion of a war-torn Iraq following 3 decades of dictatorship. Ahlaam screened at over 125 International Film Festivals, received over 22 awards, and represented Iraq for Oscar and Golden Globe Consideration in 2007.

Mohamed returned to Iraq in 2008 to shoot feature film Son of Babylon and has just completed work on his feature length documentary, Iraq: War love God and Madness. As well as his filmmaking, Mohamed has now set up IRAQ’S MISSING CAMPAIGN, a cause central to the story of Son of Babylon, which seeks to identify the bodies discovered in Iraq's Mass Graves.

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