Grand Prix Competition

LIBERACE OF BAGHDAD




Sean McAllister

Country of production: UK
Year: 2004
Language: English
Mins: 75

Production company: Tenfoot Films
Producer: Sean McAllister
Cinematography: Sean McAllister
Editing: Ollie Huddleston
Sound: Sean McAllister
Music: Samir Peter

Source: TV2 World Sales
Tel:+45 35 372 200
Fax: +45 35 372 227
e-mail: sales@tv2.dk
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Holed up in a heavily fortified Baghdad hotel, the pianist Samir Peter and filmmaker Sean McAllister try to survive the ‘peace’ of post-war Iraq. Samir, once Iraq's most famous pianist, now plays in a half-empty hotel bar to contractors, mercenaries and besieged journalists. In his heyday he described himself as the “Liberace of Baghdad” but today he sleeps in a bricked up hotel room, since it is safer than crossing town late at night to his seven-bedroom mansion. Samir’s non-stop womanizing led to the break-up of his marriage. His ex-wife and two of his four children immigrated to the United States. Now Samir is waiting for a visa to live in America too. He hopes to find fame and fortune there in what he calls his “one last adventure in life”. But Sahar, his pro-Saddam daughter, hates America for what it has done to her country. She refuses to go. During the eight months that McAllister films, violence in Iraq escalates out of control. Kidnapping is rife and Samir’s neighbor is murdered on her doorstep. Will Samir sacrifice his American dream for the sake of his family left in lawless Iraq? Special Jury Prize for World Documentary, Sundance Film Festival.

Sean McAllister was born in 1965. He studied at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, UK, specializing in documentary filmmaking; graduated in 1995. In 1997 he made the award-winning first film “Working for the Enemy”. “Minders” won the Royal Television Society Award for the best documentary in 1998. CIDF presented “The Minders” and “Hull’s Angel” in 2003. He is now working on “Stackers” for BBC Films, a feature film he wrote in a Baghdad hotel last year.

Filmography:

The Liberace of Baghdad (2004)
Hull’s Angel (2002)
Settlers (2001)
Minders (1998)
Shootout in Swansea (1997)
Working for the Enemy (1997)

MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2005 AT 8.00 PM. / CHOPIN THEATRE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2005 AT 3.30 PM. / GALLERY THEATRE

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2005 AT 7.00 PM. / GALLERY THEATRE