KNOW WHO Oday Rasheed & Furat al Jamil
Highlighted Project: Qarantina (Iraq, 35mm, 2010) Qarantina is the story of a professional killer in Baghdad who lives in an abandoned building with a displaced family, watching emotionless as they struggle. This $400,000 90-minute feature has been produced by Enlil Film & Art and made with the support of the Directorate for Cinema & Theatre in Iraq. BASISBerlin – the post-production house which worked on Shirin Neshat’s Women
without Men and the Oscar-nominated documentary The Weeping Camel – has undertaken the sound post-production for the project and also acts as a co-producer. The film has received some of its funding from the Hubert Bals Fund, an initiative of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and has been supported by the Dubai Film Connection 2009.
Furat al Jamil In addition to being the Executive Producer both on Rasheed’s first feature film Underexposure and on his current project - and second feature-length movie - Qarantina, Furat al Jamil is a writer and director in her own right. Born and raised in Bavaria, Germany until the age of 14 by her Iraqi father and German mother, Furat and her family relocated to Baghdad in 1980 which – in spite of her family ties – was something of a culture shock for the teenager. In 1993, she left Baghdad for London to complete an MA in International Journalism followed by several years working in Argentina on social documentaries. Al-Jamil eventually returned to Germany in 2000 where four years later - she met, married and began to work with Oday Rasheed. Furat’s current projects include the feature-length screenplays Little Memories – about the magic of childhood memories – and Café Abu Nawas – which touches on the lives of exiled Iraqis in Europe. The two filmmakers continue to live and work between Baghdad and Berlin.
Scene from Rasheed’s 2005 feature film debut Underexposure.
Young actor Sajad Ali as the character Muhanad in a scene from Oday Rasheed’s Baghdad-based drama Qarantina.
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