Return to Kirkuk: A Year in the Fire

Directed by

Kae Bahar

It was 30 years ago that 14-year-old Karzan Sherabayani was arrested and tortured by Saddam Hussein's secret police, his only crime being that he was a Kurd. After 25 years in exile, Karzan, now a British citizen, has returned to his childhood home to vote in Iraq's first democratic election. Having been banished for so long, Karzan now asks the people of Kirkuk if they accept the path promoted by the West...a path that will inevitably lead to a divided Iraq or a bloody civil war. In this incredible documentary, Karzan exposes a city that sits on one of the world's largest oil deposits as a place where old ethnic and sectarian divisions are still rife. Kirkuk, he says, is a microcosm of the new Iraq. During the year it took to make the program, Karzan confronted old demons from his past and met with the heroes and villains who are fashioning the country's dangerous and uncertain future