..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

May 13, 2003

Marooned In Iraq Opens in Iraq
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First public screening of any film since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime

Director Bahman Ghobadi's acclaimed Kurdish drama MAROONED IN IRAQ, now in theaters throughout the U.S., will premiere in Iraq beginning May 14. The film will open in Sulleimanieah and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan on the 14th followed by the Baghdad premiere on May 17. The event will mark the first public screening of a film since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Bahman Ghobadi will travel to all three cities for the premieres. Following MAROONED IN IRAQ's opening in larger centers, the film will travel to smaller Kurdish towns and refugee camps, where, in the absence of movie theaters, it will be shown by mobile video projection systems. Last year, Ghobadi's celebrated feature debut, A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES, was shown in Iraqi Kurdish towns to highly enthusiastic receptions.

A stirring insider portrait of the Kurdish people--full of music, joy, surreal comedy and heartbreaking tragedy--MAROONED IN IRAQ was acclaimed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival. Wellspring opened the film in the U.S. on April 25.

In the wake of the Iran-Iraq war, Iraqi Kurds are fleeing towards the Iranian border in droves as Saddam Hussein turns his air force loose against them. In the midst of the chaos, Mirza, a famous Kurdish-Iranian musician, hears that his ex-wife Hanareh, a singer who deserted him for his best friend 23 years ago, is somewhere in Iraq and in need of his help. Determined to find the woman he loves, he persuades his two musician sons--Barat, a motorcycle-loving bachelor, and Audeh, husband to seven wives and father of 13 daughters--into accompanying him on what will be the adventure of their lives. Travelling through villages and refugee camps--feted wherever they go--the men are given clues to Hanareh's whereabouts. But as the dusty Iranian landscape gives way to the snowbound Iraqi highlands, they enter a wartorn wasteland far beyond their wildest imaginings. In this land of bombs and bandits, Mirza fears Hanareh will never be found.

MAROONED IN IRAQ is Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi's tribute to his people, a nation of wanderers who, despite the ravages of war, continue to embrace life and celebrate it with their music.