Résumés(1)
Saeid Jaf was the commander of a mercenary army under the regime of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. He believes that there is only one man in history he can be compared to, and that's Oskar Schindler, the man who saved the lives of hundreds of Jews during the Second World War. Now armed only with a video camera, Saeid Jaf returns to Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq. At the end of the 1980s, over 180,000 Kurds were slaughtered here during the al-Anfal Campaign. Saeid was the commander of an army unit, and so he's being held partly responsible for the mass murders. He is to stand trial for the crime at the new Iraqi court, but claims that he actually saved thousands of lives. To prove it, he's looking for witnesses who are prepared to make statements that would exonerate him, and who will pose with him for a warm handshake. The testimonies are combined with poetic imagery, such as a stork's nest while a man stands in a cemetery, listing the names of his butchered children. Gorgeous landscape shots are alternated with pictures of human remains in mass graves. As a tribute to the victims, their photos are framed. In this way, the image is created of a man who operated under the command of a ruthless dictator, but who also used his position to do good. It's up to the viewer to decide whether he is telling the truth. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)
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