VENUE CHANGE: THE MOVIE SCREENING WILL NOW TAKE PLACE IN THE MORTARA BUILDING (3600 N Street, NW).

Please join us for the Regional Premier of the film, "Qarantina." The film screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, Oday Rasheed, moderated by Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy, Georgetown University.

Cosponsored by: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Department of Performing Arts

QARANTINA
2010. Iraq. Written and directed by Oday Rasheed. With Asaad Abudel Majeed, Alaa Najem, Hattam Auda.
In Arabic; English subtitles. 90 min. 

A broken family, headed by the patriarch, Salih, lives within the gated courtyard of a dilapidated house in Baghdad. Salih’s pregnant daughter has fallen mute, and only finds solace with Salih’s young second wife, Kerima, and preteen son, Muhanad. To keep the family afloat, Muhanad must work in the street shining shoes and, more ominously, they are forced to take in a sullen and imperious boarder. Rasheed’s brooding second feature captures the beautiful surroundings of modern Baghdad, and finds unexpected sources of resilience in the wake of catastrophe.

Oday Rasheed is an Iraqi director, scriptwriter, film critic and musician. His feature debut Underexposure (2005) was the first Iraqi film after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Before that, no feature films had been made for years. In order to encourage Iraqi cinema, in 2010, Rasheed co-founded the Baghdad Film Production Centre with Mohamed al-Daradji.

Qarantina is co-presented by the Global Film Initiative and is part of the Global Lens 2012 film series. For more information, visit www.globalfilm.org.