Event

Nice Bombs

In early 2004 Iraq-born filmmaker Usama Alshaibi, his wife, and his father returned to Baghdad for the first time in 24 years. Less than a year after Saddam's oust, members of Alshaibi's family are uneasy about the new Iraq -guns are still everywhere, and explosions are heard with such eerie regularity that they barely interrupt. Nevertheless, the situation seems almost dormant, the country seems almost safe, compared to the terrible echoes of violence now reported daily.

And still, Nice Bombs is a personal documentary focusing on the day-to-day of Alshaibi's middle-class relatives. They are a family that eats and jokes together--teasing their American visitors with stories about the war. Alshaibi's aunt giggles as she reenacts a tale of her husband's rude awakening from a nap to discover, at eye-level, a just-fired shell on the living room floor.

The filmmaker is resigned about Iraq's wars--he has scarcely known a time when Iraq wasn't involved in one. Since the filming of this documentary, things have gotten worse, obviously--that a personal film such as this could have been made in 2004 Iraq is surprising; that it could be now made in 2007 Iraq is inconceivable, and evidence of the growing disconnect between the portrayal of occupied Iraq and the Iraq of its citizens and families, now scattered all over the world.

Usama Alshaibi is a Chicago based filmmaker and the director of
Muhammad and Jane, a narrative feature, as well as more than thirty
shorts.