Baghdad Messi

Sahim Omar Kalifa

Belgium/Netherlands/Iraq | V.O. Arabic/Kurde/English | ST French | 2021 | 87 min | DCP | color | Fiction | Canadian Premiere

Iraq. Hamoudi lives for soccer and his dream of becoming as remarkable as his soccer hero, Lionel Messi. One day, when he is unintentionally involved in an assault, he wakes up in hospital with a missing leg. While his parents do all they can to keep the family safe, Hamoudi fights to make his dream come true in spite of everything.

Distribution
Director Sahim Omar Kalifa
Music Frédéric Vercheval
Cinematographer Anton Mertens
Screenplay Kobe Van Steenberghe
Cast Atheer Adel, Zahraa Ghandour, Ahmed Mohammed Adullah
Artistic director Hasjim Shaji
Production A TEAM PRODUCTIONS
Distribution Flanders Image

Biographie

Sahim Omar Kalifa

Born in 1980 in Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan, Sahim Omar Kalifa is a Belgian-Kurdish filmmaker based in Belgium since 2001. In 2008, he graduated from the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels with a Master's degree in filmmaking. With his short film Nan, Kalifa won the Best Flemish Student Film award at the Louvain International Short Film Festival. Kalifa has won over 100 international awards for his short films Land of the Heroes, Bad Hunter and Baghdad Messi. The latter was one of the ten finalists at the 87th Academy Awards.