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Heavy Metal in Baghdad (2008)

The Dark Reality of Making Music in Iraq

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Heavy Metal in Baghdad (2008)

Acrassicauda perform at the VICE sponsored concert at the Al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad

Vice Films
"You want to know where we get our inspiration?" one of the members of Iraq's only metal band asks early on in Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi's documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. "Take a look around. We're living in a heavy metal world."
Founded near the end of Saddam Hussein's regime, Acrassicauda continued to play gigs during the war and U.S. occupation, drawing the attention of the editors of VICE Magazine. Their documentary begins as a celebration of the liberating power of rock 'n' roll -- see Acrassicauda rock out, powered by generators, while bombs and gunfire explode outside! -- but soon turns into a much darker portrait of the reality of life in Baghdad and beyond.

Visiting the band in 2006, Alvi and Moretti quickly discover that life outside the Green Zone is nearly impossible, with lethal danger, unspeakable levels of fear, and upwards of 300 dead every day. Equipped with flak jackets and a security detail of twelve shooters, they learn that the band's practice room and instruments has been destroyed by a SCUD missile. More recently, they caught up with Acrassicauda in Damascus, where they became Syria's first heavy metal refugees. The filmmakers help them put on a show and record a demo, but life as they knew it, their dreams, and their music, has become just another victim of the Iraq War.

Directed by: Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi
Produced by: Spike Jonze, Shane Smith, Eddy Moretti
Running Time: 1 hr. 24 min.
MPAA Rating: Not Rated

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