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Son of Babylon: Leeds film in Sundance Festival joy
A film with Made in Leeds stamped across it will be screened at one of the most prestigious festivals in the world.
Son of Babylon, by Woodhouse-based Human Films, has been chosen to appear at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival.
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In January director Mohamed Al-Daradji, producer Isabelle Stead from Pudsey and scriptwriter Jenny Norridge from Garforth will jet off to
Salt Lake City for the 26th festival founded by the Hollywood legend.
Mohamed, originally from Iraq and who now splits his time between Baghdad and Leeds, spent six months filming in his homeland finishing earlier this year.
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The film is set in 2003 and follows an Iraqi grandmother Um-Ibrahim (played by Shehzad Hussen) as she tries to find her soldier son who has been missing since the first Gulf War in 1991.
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She takes along her 12-year-old grandson Ahmed (Yassir Talib) and their journey from the mountains of the north to the southern sands reveals the hidden horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The 32-year-old director said: "The idea came from my auntie.
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"She lost her son in the war between Iraq and Iran. When I was child we used to come together as a family for a happy occasion but she would start crying about Ali.
"They never found his body.
"In 2003 after the fall of Saddam I was working in Baghdad and I heard on the new that they'd discovered a mass grave in the city. I froze during the news report. I remembered my auntie and her crying.
"I never understood how she was feeling but I thought there was a film to be made about a mother looking for her son who has been missing for so long.
"More than one million people went missing during Saddam Hussein's regime so it is a story many people will relate to."
The film was shot using a mix of British, French and Iraqi crew and non-professional actors.
It starts with reports of prisoners of war being found alive in the south, but the pair's journey then moves to Babylon where a mass grave is unearthed.
Mohamed said: "I wanted a realistic feel and I hope when the Iraqi audience gets to watch it they will forget it's a film and think they're watching their life.
"I suppose it's a road movie about a mother's quest to find her son. It is about looking to the future but also to learn from the past and to move on."
Human Films was set up by three Leeds Metropolitan University film graduates – Mohamed, Isabelle and Danny Evans, 26, from Morley.
Isabelle, 30, said: "Sundance is one of the top festivals in America. The film being picked will drum up publicity and hopefully grab the attention of distributors in north America as we already have an eastern distribution deal."
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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