PyraMovies first co-production feature film ‘Son of Babylon’, directed by Iraqi filmmaker Mohamed Al-Daradji, has won two Independent Jury Awards at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.
The film has won the 6th Amnesty International Film Award, which was for the first time split between ‘Son of Babylon’ and ‘Waste Land’ by Lucy Walker (United Kingdom/Brazil). The Amnesty International Film Award was established to raise the issue of Human Rights with cinema audiences and the film industry and aims to encourage filmmakers to take up vital issues.
‘Son of Babylon’ also won the 25th Peace Film Award which was awarded to director Mohamed Al-Daradji in a ceremony last night at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Presenting him with the award was Carolin Emcke, a well-known German author and international reporter.
Campaign
The awards come at a timely focal point as Nashwa Al Ruwaini, Pyramedia’s CEO, and PyraMovies join forces with Human Film and Iraq Al Rafidain to launch the landmark ‘Iraq’s Missing Campaign’, a campaign related to the subject matter of the film. The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights estimates more than 1.5 million people have gone missing over the last 40 years and hundreds of thousands of bodies have been recovered from 300 mass graves so far. Numbers are growing as more mass graves are being discovered, which is overwhelming the limited resources that aid organisations in Iraq have available to them. The ‘Iraq’s Missing campaign’ and ‘Son of Babylon’ will endeavor to communicate the extent of the genocide and will begin lobbying for the redirection of resources in Iraq and from outside organisations dedicated to issues such as these, to fund the technology needed for the identification of the bodies in a more efficient way.
The campaign is also backed by the Iraqi Prime Minister H.E Nour Al Maliki and the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights H.E Ms. Wijdan Makha’il Salim. The European premiere of ‘Son of Babylon’ in Berlin last week was followed by a recorded speech by the Iraqi Prime Minister in support of the film as he highlighted the impact that the film and the campaign will have on the Iraqi people. The Iraqi Minister of Human Rights flew in from Iraq for the premiere to speak at the Q&A and the screening was also attended by H.E Alaa Al-Hashimy, Iraqi Ambassador to Germany and his delegation.
Nashwa Al Ruwaini quotes, “This film is extremely important for the Iraqi people and we hope that by showing to the world the deeply rooted issues that still remain in Iraq, to the world, that we can speed up the process of change in this massively complex country. We will continue to do as much as possible in working towards acquiring the means to identifying these lost souls in the mass graves, so that one day families in Iraq may find peace somehow to look to the future”.
The film ‘Son of Babylon’ begins in Northern Iraq in 2003, three weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ahmed a 12-year-old Kurdish boy begrudgingly follows in the shadow of his grandmother who on hearing the news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, is determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed’s father, who never returned from the Gulf War in 1991.
From the mountains of the North to the sands of Babylon, they hitch rides with 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, leading the boy to the coming of age.
PyraMovies, the film development and funding arm of Pyramedia, joined forces with production companies Human Film (UK + NL), and Iraq Al-Rafidain (Iraq) in co-producing the 90 minute feature film in 2009. Nashwa Al Ruwaini is also an Executive Producer on Al-Daradji’s film.
Such developments with ‘Son of Babylon’ are an important step for PyraMovies, which was launched earlier this year to develop and fund feature films, and comes as the first in a series of high-profile films that are slated to come out of this new venture in Pyramedia. ‘Changing Sands, The Story of Abu Dhabi Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ a feature-documentary is also a project in the process of post-production under PyraMovies and is scheduled for completion later this year.
‘Son of Babylon’ is a co-production between a number of countries including Iraq, UAE, Palestine, UK, France and Holland, with support from organizations including the Sundance Institute, UK Film Council and CNC France. The film’s world sales agent are Roissy Film (FR) and it’s Arab world distributor is Sunnyland ART (Egypt).