Remember Bagdhad

"Jews, Muslims, Christians - We were all Iraqis - it was paradise." This is how Eileen Khalastchy describes her childhood Iraq. In Remember Baghdad we get acquainted with five Jewish families who share their personal stories from an Iraq that seems so infinitely different from the war-torn country we read about in newspapers today. Through a mix of archive photography, home videos and interviews, we are served the exciting story of the life of a privileged group of Jews in Iraq in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. A life that at one time was about flourishing business and dealing with the Iraqi elite. But after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 – and even more after the six-day war in 1967 – the general mood among the Jews in the Arab world changed. With great sorrow, the last of the Iraqi Jews moved, or fled, to other countries in the world that could offer them security.

Fiona Murphy is an Irish documentary film maker and journalist. She has worked for BBC, and made documentaries like Neither Fish Nor Fowl and The Other Irish Travellers.