Sari's Mother

While their children are still sleeping, women are lighting fires in order to make breakfast from the milk they have just taken from their goats. Another day begins at a small oasis in Iraq. At first glance it might seem to be a calm life far from the reach of civilisation. Suddenly a US army fighter plane flies over the village and children run for under the shade of a tree to spot it. But little Sari isn't able to get up so quickly. He is too weak to go to school or to play with other children for any more than a few minutes. Sari is HIV positive, after contracting the disease in hospital a few years earlier. His condition is now in an advanced stage. Sari's mother takes him to doctors, though they can do nothing to help. She attempts in vain to win compensation from the health ministry. At all times she maintains a determined expression which proves a shelter and source of support for her son. This moving picture by the renowned director James Longley gives us an insight into the world of an Iraqi woman trying to ensure conditions of dignity for her son. As in his award-winning Iraq in Fragments, Longley's camera-work is intimate and moving.