Songs of Adam

90 min

The year is 1946. Under the strict orders of their father, Adam drags his younger brother Ali to witness their grandfather being prepared for burial. Their cousin Iman, their constant playmate, is excluded from the ritual because she is a girl. The sight of his grandfather’s body has a profound effect on Adam; he announces that he doesn’t want to grow up and, from that moment on, he stops aging. As the years pass, the villagers come to believe Adam is cursed, while his brother, grappling with his own aging, feels Adam should be institutionalized. Only Iman and Anki, a shepherd and Adam’s lifelong best friend, see his condition as a blessing, preserving in him the pure, innocent goodness of a child.

Oday Rasheed is an Iraqi-American writer and director.

In 2003, he filmed his first feature, Underexposure, which was the first film made in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. The world premiere of Underexposure took place at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, winning multiple awards including the Best Film Award at the Singapore International Film Festival. In 2009, Rasheed finished shooting the movie Qarantina, which won the Jury Prize at the Oran Film Festival. In 2012, Rasheed immigrated to the US. He filmed his first English-speaking film, If You See Something, in New York, premiering in the 2024 Woodstock International Film Festival.

Rasheed’s last film, Songs of Adam, won the Yusr Best Screenplay Award in the 2024 Red Sea Competition.

https://en.majalla.com/node/323556/culture-social-affairs/%E2%80%98songs-adam%E2%80%99-tells-tale-iraq-does-not-age

Host or Publisher Calgary Arab Arts & Culture Society