Léalo en español
Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez, director, producer and editor of My Lost Country, is a living example of the hybridization of cultures due to migration and war conflicts in the second half of the 20th century. The documentary is both her story and that of her Iraqi father Mohsen and his family, in search not only of a country but of identity.
Ishtar Yasin made her film debut with El camino, a production from Puerto Rico where she lived with her mother after the coup in Chile and after a period studying in Moscow. El camino premiered in Berlin and won awards at several festivals. My Lost Country bowed at IDFA 2022, where it won an award for best artistic contribution, and is now screening in Mexico at the Black Canvas Festival.
It is not an easy story to tell, even if a linear narrative had been used, and the director chose instead a circular narrative in which a woman – Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez herself – is at the Institute of Fine Arts in Iraq and opens a window. What happens in the next hour and a half is something that could be a memory or a fantasy. It is so intimate and personal that there are several moments in which the viewer is left out, despite one’s empathy for the characters.
Mohsen Sadoon Yasin, an author and theater director, is at the center of this story and takes us on his endless migration through Iraq, Moscow, Chile (which he left due to the coup d’état), Iraq (he left due to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship), Kuwait, Denmark and London, where he died.
The documentary is composed of photos and segments of family films of varying quality, brought together by the performances of Mr. Yasin and others. One might call it overly theatrical, but given the Yasin family’s life on stage, we can consider these composites a tribute to theater. The editing is intriguing although in several places confusing, since some pieces of film are manipulated (it comes from celluloid stock developed by hand) and it is difficult to place the people in time, or even identify them clearly, like the very grainy shots of a woman who could be the director, her mother or even her grandmother.
The documentary uses several classic tools (there are brief interviews with Mr. Yasin, shots of the cities in which he lived, including the bombing of the Palacio de la Moneda in Santiago de Chile) and new ones bordering on surrealism (two figures appear several times, a woman and a girl, wearing Sumerian masks; at the end, a woman with a mask walks through the ruins of Baghdad.) Perhaps the most important thing about the film is not its artistic merits but its tribute to a man who was above all a humanist who refused to be classified as Shiite or Sunni, on the grounds that he was only Iraqi. He did not resort to violence despite the conditions he faced. The documentary portrays not only Mohsen Yasin but the men and women who migrate out of necessity, are resilient, and do not surrender to violence.
Director, screenplay, editing: Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez
With: Mohsen Sadoon Yasin
Producers: Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez, Hala Lotfy
Cinematography: Ishtar Yasin, Yadira Andrade Viosca, Omeed Khalid, Medoo Ali, Pablo Antonio Fuenzalida
Original Music : Khalid Alrawi,
Sound Design: Homer Mora, Ishtar Yasin, Yatnna Montilla
Production companies: Astarté Films (Costa Rica), Hassala Films (Egypt) , Iraqi Films (Iraq), Red Sea Foundation, Cintámani Films (Chile)
In Spanish, Russian, Arabic
93 minutes
