Nowhere To Hide

Synopsis

Only recently have the long-term negative effects of the United States’ 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq come into view. Set in the aftermath of widespread infrastructural collapse, political insurgency, and bloody civil war, director Zaradasht Ahmed’s explosive documentary Nowhere to Hide chronicles the unrelenting hardships of internally displaced refugees, who have been forced to find shelter in a country that many of the world’s most developed nations have collectively turned their backs on. After showing the initial burst of optimism that swept throughout Iraq following the 2011 withdrawal of American troops, Ahmed segues to the chaos and despair that quickly set in, once ISIS arrived and began seizing territories from Fallujah to Mosul. Deploying an innovative flashback structure, Nowhere to Hide poignantly captures Nori Sharif (the narrator/main subject)’s downfall from a middle-class nurse who videotapes others’ misfortunes on behalf of the director to a homeless refugee who roams the desert looking for food and water for his malnourished children after the destruction of his hospital. Unlike other Iraq documentaries in which local informers are reduced to “talking heads” interspersed with expert interviews, Sharif’s video diaries offer intimate portraits of ordinary Iraqis still clinging to hope in the face of violence, displacement, and poverty.

Synopsis by Dr. David Scott Diffrient