The Lions by the River Tigris

Nowhere to Hide follows the medic and father Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change after the American retreat from Iraq in 2011. While filming stories of survivors, he finds himself trapped between ISIS and the different Iraqi Militias. In trying to save his own family, he is soon forced to turn the camera towards himself.

The director, Zaradasht Ahmed (1968), turns into a character in the film. His background and, not least, his inquisitiveness and fascination guide us as we enter this world of his. He himself has made the journey into Europe, albeit for separate and possibly more serious reasons than our other characters, but he has no trouble comprehending their motive power. Zaradasht fled from the First Gulf War; he had just graduated from the Kirkuk Institute of Technology in Northern Iraq. He wandered through the minefields in the Kurdish part of Iraq, and eventually reached Syria and later Lebanon. After five years on the run, he arrived in Norway in 1995 as a quota refugee. He still lives here, he has passed 40, and feels he has to move on. Life in Norway is safe and comfortable, but something is lacking. Fata Morgana lies to the south, beyond Gibraltar. Here he meets someone who reminds him of the dream he had as a young man.

Heng lives with his close knit deeply Buddhist family in rural Cambodia, who work hard struggling as farmers. At 6, he lost both his arms in a landmine explosion. Now, as a teenager hanging with the wrong crowd, and no future at the farm, his mother sends him to his older brother, Chana, who makes romantic music videos in the bustling city of Phnom Penh. Here, with a bossy brother, amid a So-Me, “wanna-be” culture, Heng must make it. A film about a family who are living the consequences of war which ended decades ago.