• Director(s):

    TONOLLI (FREDERIC)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE GEIE, SUNSET PRESSE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2016

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

Straddling the Tigris and the Euphrates, a veritable river border with Iran, the “Venice of the East” is now but a shadow of its former self.

The city’s canals are full of filth, the turbines of its power plants have ground to a standstill, and people in the city of oil are surviving on very little electricity and drinking water.
The country’s future is being played out in Basra, Iraq’s real economic centre. With its production of hydrocarbons, and its ports and terminals, the city generates 90% of the oil revenues of Baghdad. For a long time, foreign companies dictated their conditions, forgetting Iraqi workers during the negotiations.
Now, it is in Basra that volunteers for the Shi’ite militia are being recruited, among a youth lacking training, deprived of oil income, and devoid of any ideal.
Basra, the city of Sinbad the Sailor, should have been Iraq’s most prosperous city. 30 years of war and corruption have put paid to that.