The Boys from Baghdad High
| The Boys from Baghdad High | |
|---|---|
Tribeca Film Festival poster
|
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| Also known as | 'Baghdad High' |
| Genre |
Documentary film Television news magazine |
| Directed by | Ivan O'Mahoney Laura Winter |
| Starring | Hayder Khalid Mohammad Raed Anmar Refat Ali Shadman |
| Composer(s) | Will Worsley Farhad Amirahmadi Mounir Baziz |
| Country of origin |
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| Original language(s) |
Arabic with subtitles English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Alan Hayling Karen O'Connor Hans Robert Eisenhauer Sheila Nevins |
| Producer(s) | Ivan O'Mahoney Laura Winter |
| Location(s) | Baghdad, Iraq |
| Editor(s) | Richard Guard Johnny Burke |
| Camera setup | single-camera |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original release | 8 January 2008 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
| Production website | |
The Boys from Baghdad High, also known as Baghdad High, is a British-American-French television documentary film. It was first shown in the United Kingdom at the 2007 Sheffield Doc/Fest, before airing on BBC Two on 8 January 2008. It also aired in many other countries including France, Australia, the United States, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. It documents the lives of four Iraqi schoolboys of different religious or ethnic backgrounds over the course of one year in the form of a video diary. The documentary was filmed by the boys themselves, who were given video cameras for the project.
Directed and produced by Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter of Renegade Pictures and StoryLabTV, for the United Kingdom's BBC, HBO in the United States, and the Franco-German network Arte, The Boys from Baghdad High was produced by Alan Hayling and Karen O'Connor for the BBC, Hans Robert Eisenhauer for Arte, and Sheila Nevins for HBO.
The Boys from Baghdad High received high viewership when it initially aired in the UK, and was reviewed favourably in the media. It was named the Best News and Current Affairs Film at the European Independent Film Festival, won the Premier Prize at the Sandford St. Martin Trust Awards, and was nominated for awards at two film festivals. The documentary also received the Radio Times Readers Award, and a nomination for the Amnesty International 2008 Television Documentary and Docudrama UK Media Award.
The film brings together the video diaries recorded by four friends and students at the Tariq bin Ziad High School for Boys in Zayouna, a mixed-race, middle-class area in the Karrada suburb of Baghdad, Iraq. Entering their final year in 2006, each has high expectations for the year ahead and hope to graduate so they can have a chance to attend university. At the same time, the boys must also deal with the increasing sectarian violence that is starting to extend into Karrada. They face the threats of roadside bombings, the hassles of security checkpoints on their way to school, frequent curfews, the constant presence of American Apache helicopters overhead, and the deterioration of their neighbourhood which becomes rife with assassinations, muggings and kidnappings. Many of their fellow students, unmotivated and academically underperforming, are absent from school.
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