“You could also ask what is art’s take on the destruction that is happening? What is its perspective? What does art say about what Iraq is going through? What will it look like? What will be its form? . . . If only you knew how much hope Iraqis have.”  - Excerpt from Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle in Iraq

This month, Freedom Flicks presents Samir’s Iraqi Odyssey. Iraqi Odyssey is a story of one family’s journey, from Iraq to their current home. Piecing together his family’s history, filmmaker Samir documents the impacts of war on Iraqi diaspora through one family’s story.

After the free screening, we will be joined by Ali Issa, author of Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle in Iraq, and Amnah Almuktar, cofounder of the Iraqi Transnational Collective. Our speakers will discuss the burgeoning Iraqi diaspora, how this rich community maintains connections to Iraq, and what those connections mean. In addition, copies of Against All Odds will be on sale for interested attendees.

More on Against All Odds: Voices of Popular Struggle in Iraq: Collected from dozens of interviews with, and reports from, Iraqi feminists, labor organizers, environmentalists, and protest movement leaders, Against All Odds presents the unique voices of progressive Iraqi organizing on the ground. Dating back to 2003, with an emphasis on the 2011 upsurge in mobilization and hope as well as the subsequent embattled years, these voices belong to Iraqis asserting themselves as agents against multiple local, regional, and global forces of oppression.