Films from the Front Lines of Tyranny: Personal Stories Resurface at Doha Film Festival
Two powerful films exploring the realities of life under oppressive regimes in Libya and Iraq during the 1990s took center stage at the 2025 Doha Film Festival on Monday, November 24th. Presented under the thematic banner of “This is tyranny, and this is our corner,” the works – “Baba and Gaddafi” and “Kingdom of the Reeds” – offer distinct yet equally compelling approaches to confronting a shared history of political repression through deeply personal narratives.
Unearthing a Family’s Loss in “Baba and Gaddafi”
“Baba and Gaddafi,” directed by Jihan Al-Kikhia, is a poignant documentary chronicling the disappearance of her father, Mansour Rashid Al-Kikhia, a Libyan diplomat murdered by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 1993. For 19 years, his fate remained unknown, a source of agonizing uncertainty for his family. The film intimately portrays the decades-long search led by Jihan’s mother, Bahaa, and the eventual discovery of his remains in 2012 within a villa linked to Gaddafi’s intelligence network.
Al-Kikhia presented the film alongside her mother, brother Rashid, and niece Dania, offering a raw and unfiltered glimpse into their collective trauma. Rather than relying on political analysis, the documentary focuses on the human cost of tyranny – the absence of a father, the relentless wait for answers, and the enduring pain of loss. “This is a personal film, because he is my father first,” Al-Kikhia explained, emphasizing her deliberate choice to center the narrative around her family’s experience.
The film eschews traditional documentary techniques, instead presenting the voices of the survivors directly to the camera, interwoven with archival footage. According to Al-Kikhia, the goal was to present the truth without manipulation. “We are not faced with imaginary characters, they are real survivors of the crime. We do not put words in their mouths, nor do we ask them to repeat the scene.”
Bahaa Al-Kikhia, the director’s mother, spoke of the enduring power of hope, stating, “Hope is not a luxury, it is what kept me alive.” Her resilience, rooted in a belief in a greater wisdom, underscores the strength required to navigate such profound grief. Rashid Al-Kikhia expressed his gratitude to his sister for undertaking the difficult task of documenting their family’s story, acknowledging his own inability to do so.
The film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival last summer marked a significant milestone, becoming the first Libyan work showcased there in 13 years. While critical acclaim was welcomed, the family emphasized the importance of breaking the silence surrounding Mansour Al-Kikhia’s disappearance.
Metaphor and Memory in “Kingdom of the Reeds”
In contrast to Al-Kikhia’s direct approach, Iraqi director Hassan Hadi employs metaphor and fiction in “Kingdom of the Reeds” to explore the suffocating atmosphere of Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s rule in 1990. The film centers on Lamia (Banin Ahmed Nayef), an 11-year-old girl tasked with baking a cake to celebrate the president’s birthday during a period of severe economic hardship.
Hadi deliberately avoids depicting Hussein directly, instead focusing on the omnipresence of his image – 45 million pictures distributed among a population of 22 million, ensuring each person received at least two. This visual saturation, he argues, represents the all-encompassing nature of the regime’s control. “Tyrants bring invaders,” Hadi stated, suggesting a direct link between oppressive rule and external conflict, culminating in the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent American occupation.
The film’s title, “Kingdom of Reeds,” symbolizes Iraq’s vulnerability and inability to defend itself against both internal and external forces. The schoolteacher, portrayed as rude and corrupt, serves as a microcosm of the Iraqi society of the 1990s, a period largely overlooked in cinematic representations.
The narrative unfolds through Lamia’s perspective as she struggles to acquire the necessary ingredients for the cake – eggs, sugar, and flour – forcing her and her grandmother to sell cherished possessions, including an old tape recorder and clock. The cake itself becomes a potent symbol of the stark contrast between the opulence of power and the widespread hunger experienced by the Iraqi people.
Hadi emphasized the importance of spontaneity in his direction of the young actors, stating, “I only held a workshop, during which I wanted them to understand that acting is not an exam with right and wrong answers.” He sought “happy coincidences” – authentic moments that transcended scripted dialogue. His own experience growing up in a censored Iraq, where films were shared clandestinely through underground networks, deeply informed his artistic approach. “The theaters were closed, and foreign films were forbidden from entering. We traded the tapes among ourselves like smugglers, watching in secret what the regime prohibited.”
The Power of the Personal
Both “Baba and Gaddafi” and “Kingdom of the Reeds” demonstrate the profound power of personal storytelling in confronting the legacy of tyranny. By focusing on individual experiences – a daughter’s search for her father, a child’s attempt to bake a cake – these films transcend political rhetoric and offer a visceral, unforgettable portrayal of life under oppression. As one observer noted, these are not political speeches, but wounds given a name, a face, and a memory, making tyranny tangible and real.
