
In Saddam’s Shadow: 10 Years After
Baghdad, a decade after the US invasion, through the eyes of Waleed Nesyif, former lead singer of the Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda, who is returning home for the first time in eight years. VICE founder Suroosh Alvi hosts, riding along with a Baghdadi biker gang whose members reminisce about life under Saddam Hussein, a nostalgia that sits uneasily against the city's present. The film tracks how a place once covered nonstop by American networks has slipped out of the news cycle even as daily dangers persist, including the ADE 651, a handheld device Iraqi soldiers still use at checkpoints to detect car bombs three years after it was shown to be fake. Alvi and Nesyif also find Baghdad's emo youth and LGBTQ residents, some describing attacks tied directly to how they dress or who they are. The footage moves through family reunions, street checkpoints, and subculture hangouts to show a capital still absorbing the war's aftermath long after the cameras left.