Dance with a bullet
Director
Dhyaa Joda
Biography
Dhyaa Joda was born in 1979 in Baghdad, Iraq. He studied cinema at the University of Fine Arts in Baghdad and graduated in 2004. He worked as a cameraman and filmmaker for several arabic TV channels: Al-jazeera, Al-Arabia and Al-hurra. In 2004 he worked as a cameraman and director's assistant on the short documentary “First Degree Murder” for the Red Cross. He was a cameraman for the documentary film “Operation Filmmaker” by Nina Davenport. He directed the short documentary “Between Bullets &Dijla” in 2005 and received a special mention from AmmanNet, Jordan. He left Baghdad in November 2005 for Belgium, and is since living in Brussels. He has directed the film "Last 30 days in Baghdad", which was screened in different cities in Belgium. Some of his short documentaries were screened across Europe, “Message for Dar el Salam" at the Monty in Antwerp, and at the academy of Kuma Belgium; "Sunset Trip" at the Film Festival Offline Baghdad, Milan, and at the Arabic Film Festival, Rotterdam. In 2012 he graduated in photography from the Art academy Agnes Varda, Brussels and his work was exhibited in Brussels. In 2013 he travelled back to Baghdad to continue shooting "Dance with a bullet"
synopsis
Country of origin: Iraq,Belgium, Lebanon

Spanning ten years, Dance with a Bullet is a documentary that tells the intertwined story of Iraqi dancer AnmarTaha and his friend and filmmaker DhyaaJoda. After the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, when hope for a freer future began to disintegrate in the face of sectarian violence and chaos, the two friends fled Baghdad and headed for Europe, where they have remained living in exile ever since. Through the stories of these two artists, who struggle to find their place as emigrants abroad, the film reveals how the cultural activity of Iraqi artists both inside and outside of Iraq has become increasingly vital in the last decade, facing new dilemmas as the society becomes violently divided and the country starts to fragment.

Credits:

Director: Dhyaa Joda
Producer: Maarten Schmidt
Production company: Storyhouse
Co-producer: Talal Al-Muhanna – Linked productions

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