Maysoon Pachachi - Filmography
Maysoon Pachachi is a London-based filmmaker of Iraqi origin. She was educated in Iraq, the USA and the UK. At undergraduate level, she studied Philosophy at University College London (BA Hons) and subsequently graduated from the London Film School. She worked for many years as a documentary and drama film editor in the UK, and has worked since 1994 as an independent documentary film director. She has written several feature scripts, as well, one of which was selected for the European Union Sources II workshop.
She has also taught film directing and editing in Britain and Palestine (in Jerusalem, Gaza and at Birzeit University). She is a founding member of the London-based group, ACT TOGETHER: Women’s Action for Iraq. In 2004, with her colleague, Kasim Abid, she co-founded INDEPENDENT FILM & TELEVISION COLLEGE, a free-of-charge film-training centre in Baghdad.
Documentary films
VOICES FROM GAZA (52 mins) Channel 4 (UK) (August Films) (directed by Antonia Caccia, produced and edited by Maysoon Pachachi)
Red Ribbon Award, American Film and Video Festival, San Francisco
IRAQI WOMEN - VOICES FROM EXILE
(52 mins) Channel 4 (UK) (directed and produced by Maysoon Pachachi)
SMOKE
for Hamlyn Prize winner, UK/Brazil artist Lucia Nogueira (co-directed by Lucia Nogueira, Jon Sanders and Maysoon Pachachi, produced and edited by Maysoon Pachachi)
Part of a site-specific art installation (Ramparts Project, Berwick-on-Tweed)
IRANIAN JOURNEY
(83 mins) Legend Productions for ZDF/Arte (directed by Maysoon Pachachi)
(First Prize, Kalamata International Documentary Festival, 2000)
A documentary road-movie about a 24-hour bus trip with the only woman in the Islamic world who works as a long-distance driver.
LIVING WITH THE PAST: People and Monuments in Medieval Cairo
(52 mins) ECHO Productions (USA) (directed by Maysoon Pachachi)
BITTER WATER
(76 mins) (Legend Productions/Oxymoron Films) (co-directed and produced by Maysoon Pachachi)
Feature-length documentary about 4 generations of refugees in a Palestinian camp in Beirut.
RETURN TO THE LAND OF WONDERS
(88 mins) ZDF/Arte (directed, edited, filmed and produced by Maysoon Pachachi)
Made in 2004 on the first trip back to Baghdad in more than 35 years.
LIFE AFTER THE FALL
(2008) (directed by Kasim Abid; edited by Maysoon Pachachi)
One Iraqi family's story since the fall of Saddam's regime
OUR FEELINGS TOOK THE PICTURES: OPEN SHUTTERS IRAQ
(102 mins) (2008)
(Arab Film Festival Rotterdam 2009, Special Jury Mention) (directed, edited, filmed and produced by Maysoon Pachachi)
12 women (including a 6 year old girl), from 5 Iraqi cities, learn to take photographs and produce photo stories about their lives in Iraq.
