Bombshell: Iraqi Secret Videos and Artifacts from a Fallen Regime

2004 · 15 min

This video is compiled from several appropriated clips from VCD's(Video Compact Discs) that are sold in Baghdad.Iraqi-American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi...makes some striking juxtapositions with his work "Bombshell: Iraqi Secret Videos and Artifacts from a Fallen Regime," which split-screens a smiling Saddam Hussein birthday party and underground torture videos as well as images of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein in 1983. "'Bombshell' is saying many things at once," explains Alshaibi, who lived in Iraq as a child and just recently visited his homeland. "I'm just showing the history of Iraq: the U.S. intervention, but also keep in mind that Saddam was the United States' main guy, we helped him produce chemical weapons, so it's the schizophrenia of war and Iraq as a symbol of many things."

Directed by Usama Alshaibi