Le parfum d'Irak

As the child of a political refugee from Iraq, Feurat Alani grows up in a sheltered environment in France. After the end of the First Golf War in 1988, he is allowed to travel to the country of his forefathers for the first time. He is fascinated by his extended family, the culture and the unfamiliar aromas, but also experiences the repressive dictatorship of Saddam Hussein first-hand. In the years that followed, Alani was forced to watch helplessly as Iraq descended into chaos due to an international embargo and the American occupation. He returned to his country as a journalist to give voice to the population suffering unspeakable hardship. 

Feurat Alani’s autobiographical narrative is at once a harrowing reportage and a personal reckoning with the past. Poignant but without faltering into sentimentality, he illuminates the tragic fate of the Iraqi people over the last five decades. His memories and the historical facts are captured in haunting images by animator and co-director Léonard Cohen, who seamlessly weaves together different time periods. “Le parfum d’Irak” provides the audience with nuanced insight into the complex history of a country that has all too often been reduced to sensationalist headlines in the West. (Mischa Haberthür)