Sean McAllister → The Liberace of Baghdad

The Liberace of Baghdad

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 7 bedroom 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?

Read an article by Sean McAllister on attending a major festival and the financial struggle to get your work seen...

Awards/Nominations: The Liberace of Baghdad

• Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) 2005 >>> Award of Excellence
• British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) 2005 >>> Award for Best British Documentary
• Chicago International Documentary Festival 2005 >>> Chicago Doc Grand Prix Jury Special Prize
• Directors Guild of America (DGA) 2005 >>> Nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary
• Festival dei Popoli, Florence International Documentary Festival, Italy 2005 >>> Prix Gianpaolo Paoli for Best Ethnographic/Anthropological Film
• Grierson Trust Awards 2005 >>> Nomination for Best Documentary On A Contemporary Issue - 'The Liberace of Baghdad'
• It's All True: International Documentary Film Festival, Brazil 2005 >>> Special Jury Prize
• OneWorld 2005: 7th International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Prague >>> Minister of Culture Award for best film and Best Director Award (nominations) - 'The Liberace of Baghdad'
• Sundance Film Festival 2005 >>> Special Jury Prize (World Documentary)

Reviews: The Liberace of Baghdad

© The Times 25/1/05 → 'a remarkable film that reveals everyday life post-Saddam'

© The Times 25/1/05 → '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'

© Independent 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'

© Laure Vermeersch - Vacarme 2006 → 'Your whispering tricked me in a false sense of relative safety, as if the intimacy and your laughs quietened our angst and softened the slow progression of drama. Then the ultimatum Samir delivers half-naked from his couch - "Sean, you have to go now, I could not take the responsibility of your death." - suddenly brings home with uneasiness that we have barely seen the violence' Continue...

Links: The Liberace of Baghdad

The Internet Movie Database | BBC News | BBC Press release | BBC4 Storyville | BBC4 Storyville (Sean McAllister) | BBC4 Storyville (Samir Peter) | BBC Have Your Say | The British Documentary Website | www.britfilms.com | Screen International | The Times Online | Washingtonpost.com | Monstersandcritics.com | Vacarme | Sean & Samir on Breakfast television

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