Global Lens 2007 is a monthly film series created to promote cross-cultural understanding through the universal language of cinema during a time of great change throughout the world.

Kilometre Zero
Written and Directed by Hiner Saleem
In French, Kurdish and Arabic with English subtitles
Iraqi Kurdistan / France, 2005, 96 minutes

In the late 1980s, near the end of the war between Iran and Iraq, Ako and his friends are conscripted into the Iraqi army and given a choice: fight for Iraq against their countrymen, the Kurds, and their quest for an independent homeland, or face a firing-squad. For Ako, who is thinking of his wife and son, the decision is easy until one morning he is ordered to put down his weapon, leave the front and deliver the body of a dead Kurdish conscript to his family. Paired with an Arab taxi driver whose contempt for Kurds is as palpable as Ako’s hatred of Iraq’s Arab-dominated government, the assignment becomes a psychologically unsettling trip, as the two men carry the soldier’s flag-draped coffin across kilometres of empty desert, struggling to find a bridge between their mistrust of one another, Ako’s growing sense of statelessness in regard to the war and ultimately, the shared morbidity of their task.

“Heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measure, Saleem's powerful film, shot on location in Iraqi Kurdistan, is a poignant account of the Kurdish people's struggle for liberation and equality.”
-Ali Jaafar, BFI 50th London Film Festival Archives

“… Kilometre Zero offers a searing look into the horrors the people of Iraq, specifically the Kurds, suffered under the brutish tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Under Saleem's hand, the technical contributions are frequently eloquent, specifically composer Nikos Kipourgos' baleful score, amplified with the wails of a sad people's plea.”
-Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter

2005 Golden Palm (nomination), FESTIVAL CANNES (France)