Qarantina

 

Melwood Screening Room:  May 14 @ 9:00 PM

Melwood Screening Room:  May 19 @ 2:30 PM 

 

Co-presented by the Global Film Initiative and is part of the Global Lens 2012 film series. For more information, visit www.globalfilm.org

Passes not accepted on Opening/Closing Night. Please arrive at least 15 minutes ahead of start time to ensure availability of seating. Film schedule and Q & A's are subject to change.

2012/Iraq/Director: Oday Rasheed/90 min.
Cast:  Asaad Abdul Majeed, Alaa Najem, and Hattam Auda (Language: Arabic with English subtitles)
A shattered family in modern-day Baghdad lives in a state of baited breath.
Patriarch Salih and his wife Meriam haven’t heard their daughter utter a word in three days. Unknown atrocities cause her to escape within herself. She stays unresponsive neither progressing nor regressing. The sounds of gunfire in the eerily quiet city don’t startle her. Her brother Muhanad is also numb to the sounds of tanks and occasional screams from the streets.
If not for a mysterious hit man paying for the room above their house, the entire family would be out on those streets. The stoic boarder kills for a man named “The Boss,” but like the mayhem of Baghdad, he doesn’t adhere to rules. One by one he eliminates the people from his past even though he knows he doesn’t have a future.
Like the rest of the family, he bides his time. He takes Meriam as a lover. He burns Muhanad’s school books. He idly watches Salih subject his mute daughter to physical cruelty. Even though they live in the same state of fear and chaos, each character fends for him or herself unable or unwilling to help the others. It isn’t until the daughter’s secrets are revealed and “The Boss” makes an unexpected appearance at the house, that everyone is forced through a life change.
Director Oday Rasheed’s “Qarantina” is a poignant look at a family unit in tragic circumstances and what happens when they reach the tipping point.