23rd August 2008

23 August 2008 consists of two shots A brief opening shot intercut with intertitles of the famous AlMutanabbi Street book market in Baghdad is followed by an unbroken eighteenminute monologue shot from a single still camera position and simply recording the speakers words without interruption In it Faysal Abudullah gradually builds a portrait of his relationship with his younger brother Kamel and in the process evokes the lives of Iraqi intellectuals of the left driven into exile in the early 1980s by Saddam Husseins regime Faysal describes Kamels decision to return to Iraq in 2003 his work for the new Ministry of Culture and his tragic death at the hands of unknown assassins on 23 August 2008 While the film throws light on little known aspects of Iraqs political history primarily it is the story of the two brothers of Faysals devotion to Kamel and their contrasting attitudes to exile and to life itself