Baghdad Twist

In Baghdad Twist, Joe Balass, a Jewish-Iraqi filmmaker who was born in Baghdad and grew up in Montreal, creates a visual memoir of his mother, Valentine, building the narrative out of a voiceover conversation with her, combined with family photos, home movies, and archival footage of Iraq from the 1940s through the 1960s (the contemporary Valentine never appears onscreen). The sole daughter in the family, Valentine says her mother taught her to stand up for herself, both verbally and physically, amidst her six brothers. She wore Western-style clothes, but her conservative father wouldn't let her swim in the local river the boys frequented. After the formation of Israel in 1948, many Jews fled the country, and Iraq became less hospitable toward those who remained—by her reckoning, a Jewish population of 180,000 shrank to 10,000–12,000. In the following years, Valentine married and had three children, but by 1967 (the year of the Six Day War), authorities begin to harass Jewish citizens on suspicion of providing aid to Israel. Valentine says her husband was innocent, but authorities detained him three times (some Jews were publicly hanged), and concludes by telling of their escape to North America in 1970. At a half hour, this National Film Board of Canada production provides more of a sketch than a drawing, but is still recommended for bringing a little-known story to light. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)