Sadik is an Iraqi cameraman who worked his way up in the profession and the party until he became Saddam Hussein’s personal cameraman. Initially he filmed happy occasions, family events, the dictator in jovial light. A stark contrast to what was to come – he was forced to film torture, executions, beheadings, experience the cold cruelty fellow Iraqis inflicted upon each other.
Sadik’s son, Semir did not share his father’s enthusiasm for the Ba’ath party, causing difficulty for the family. Sadik’s wife fled already to London and the son disappeared, Sadik feels it is time for him to leave Baghdad, leave Iraq. Trying to flee from guilt, from the regime, he is shunted from smuggler to smuggler and train to train, through several countries. He tries to call his wife to ask her for support. He also starts writing letters addressed to his son, confessing to him what he did, what he saw. Sadik confesses that he gave up his own son’s hiding place. In the last letter Sadik tells of the worst he ever did – he witnessed his son’s beheading from behind the camera. His nightmares, his paranoia, never leave him.
Leaving Baghdad 