Synopsis

In the year 2022, Ishtar visits the theater department of Bagdad Institute of Fine Arts. In an empty classroom, it comes alive the memory of his father, the Iraqi theater director Mohsen Sadoon Yasin, who died in England, after a long exile, in 2014.

Ishtar travels to the past, when Mohsen directed a play with young Iraqis students. In those years, he married in Baghdad, with the Chilean dancer Elena Gutiérrez. In 1968, they traveled together to Chile.

Through the correspondence between a Mohsen and Ishtar, of encounters and separations, we enter an intimate world crossed by historical events that transform their lives.

The film is an invocation. The yearning of a lost country, imagined, conquered, that take us in a personal journey in different continents and latitudes, in Iraq, Chile, Moscow, Costa Rica, Denmark and London.

Songs, photographs, letters, videos, casetes, archives that have been recollected through the years, the film is a knitting, where also poetry and myths become alive.

Team

• Ishtar

  Yasin Gutierrez

  Director and Producer

Technical Info

Year: 2022
Lenght: 93 min
Country: Chile, Irak, Egipto, Costa Rica
Director: Ishtar Yasin Gutierrez
Producer: Ishtar Yasin Gutierrez
Production Companies: Astarte’ Films – Cintámani Films – Hassala Films – Iraqi Films – Red Sea Fundation
Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/film_baladi_aldaia/?hl=es-la

Awards and Official Selections

– IDFA 2022: Outstanding Artistic Contribution Award from the Envision Competition.
– Official Selection (world premiere) at IDFA 2022
– Jury Award and Critics Award (FIPRESCI) at the Ismailia International Film Festival (Egypt)
– Official Competition Gabes Festival, Tunis, 2023
– Official Selection International Multicultural Film Festival, Boston, Massachusetts, 2023
– Finalist Nominated for Best Documentary by Arab Critics, Cannes Film Festival, 2023
– Official Selection Red Sea Documentary Film Days, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2023
– Official Selection SAFAR International Film Festival, United Kingdom, 2023