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Liberace of Baghdad
Tenfoot Films 2004

Director : Sean McAllister
Editor : Ollie Huddleston

The Liberace of Baghdad
Storyville BBC4 2004.

Held up in a heavily fortified Baghdad hotel the pianist, Samir Peter and the film-maker Sean McAllister try to survive the "peace" of post-war Iraq .

Samir Peter, once Iraq's most famous pianist now plays in a half-empty hotel bar to contractors, mercenaries and besieged journalists. In his heyday he described himself as the 'Liberace of Baghdad' but today he sleeps in a bricked up hotel room, too afraid to cross town to his seven-bedroomed mansion. His string of western girlfriends has led to his wife and two of his kids leaving for the States. But now Samir has a visa to live in America too, to find fame and fortune there is what he calls his 'one last adventure in life'. But Sahar, his pro Saddam daughter hates America for what it has done to her country. She refuses to go and Samir is set to leave alone.

Over 8 months of filming the violence escalates out of control, kidnapping is rife and Samir's neighbour is murdered on her doorstep. Will Samir now sacrifice his American dream for the sake of his family left in lawless Iraq?

Sean McAllister was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for his direction of “The Liberace of Baghdad".

The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) 2005 - Best Documentary.

SUNDANCE Special Jury Prize (World Documentary).

Boulder International Film Festival Award of Excellence.

Best Ethnographic/Anthropological Film ("Gianpaolo Paoli" Silver Plate).

Special Jury Prize Chicago International Documentary Festival.

Special Jury Prize ‘Its All True’ International Documentary Festival. Brazil.

‘Sean McAllister’s eye-opening documentary, which begins nine months after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power by American forces, tells the tale of Samir Peter, a formerly famous Iraqi concert pianist who is reduced to playing for just a few dollars a night to Western journalists in a Baghdad hotel… What started out as a quirky personal profile soon turns into an indictment of war as Peter’s mood, and that of the film, spirals downwards.’
The Times 25/1/05

‘a remarkable film that reveals everyday life post-Saddam’.
The Times. 25/1/05

‘There is a group of modern documentary films – ‘Capturing the Friedmans’ and the works of Nick Broomfield are obvious examples – that consist of works that are almost accidental, being often radically different from what the film-maker had in mind at the outset…. an odd, intimate, insightful film’.
Independent 25/1/05

© 2005 seanmcallister.com