Rosa

Rosa juxtaposes the life of the filmmaker in two extreme locations (Baghdad and Montana) through three elements of nature: dust, rust and wind. The filmmaker uses these elements as a poetic introduction to navigate memories of his past and to compare them to his Montana present.

Narrated in Arabic with distinct conversations in English, Rosa makes the extreme chaos of Baghdad, especially during the war, and the peace of the empty and isolated State of Montana stand out vividly. Shot on miniDV, the film manipulates printed images of Baghdad that become poetically destroyed with water and paint in order to represent vague and distant memories. The film also uses home video style imagery of Montana to represent the present. Both of these techniques overlap and collapse.