Iraqi Film Another Day in Baghdad Wins a Prize at the MAFF Market Forum

Back to Press Releases

Within Its Post-production Platform

Iraqi Film Another Day in Baghdad Wins a Prize at the MAFF Market Forum


Director Maysoon Pachachi’s Iraqi film Another Day in Baghdad won a prize worth $5,000 presented by The Cell Group at the Malmo Post Production Market, held as part of the MAFF Market Forum of the Malmo Arab Film Festival that will close on October 13, 2020.

Previously, Another Day in Baghdad received the IWC Schaffhausen Script Prize from the Dubai International Film Festival ($100,000), and a number of grants from different Arab film institutes, including SANAD, AFAC, and Doha Film Institute. The film also received grants from European film institutes, such as CNC and the Institut Français in France, and the British Film Institute.

In a typically mixed Baghdadi neighborhood in 2006, a community of ordinary people try to live their everyday lives amidst the threat of unpredictable violence. At the heart of these intersecting stories we find Sara, a single mother and novelist, who regains her will to write after witnessing the forced exile of her Christian neighbor and best friend Sabiha. With the news of Saddam Hussein's sudden execution shortly before the New Year, Sara and her neighbors brace themselves for an uncertain future. Yet, like a miracle, each is able to sustain a fragile sense of hope.

Directed by Maysoon Pachachi and written by Irada Al Jabbouri, Another Day in Baghadad stars Darina Al Joundi, Zainab Al Ghanami, and Amed Hashimi. The film is produced by Oxymoron Films (UK), Linked Productions (Kuwait), Les Contes Modernes (France), Neue Medlopolis Filmproduction (Germany), and MAD Solutions handles the film's distribution across the Arab world.

Maysoon Pachachi is a London-based filmmaker of Iraqi origin. She studied Philosophy at the University College London (BA Hons) and subsequently graduated from the London Film School. She worked for many years as a documentary and drama film editor in the UK. Since 1994, she has worked as an independent documentary film director. Most of her films are tappint into Middle Eastern themes. She has directed several films including, Iranian Journey (2000), Return to the Land of Wonders (2004), and Our Feelings Took the Pictures: Open Shutters Iraq (2008), which received a Special Jury Mention at the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam.

In 2004, with her colleague, Kasim Abid, she co-founded the Independent Film and Television College, a free-of-charge film-training center in Baghdad, where 17 student short documentaries have been selected in regional and international film festivals worldwide.