‘Baghdad Messi’ Review: From Iraq Comes a Heartfelt Social Realist Drama Set During the Second Gulf War

variety.com:

Richard Kuipers The shattering of a childhood dream is symbolic of the cruelly contorted fate of a nation in “Baghdad Messi.” Kurdish-Belgian filmmaker Sahim Omar Kalifa has expanded his much-acclaimed 2012 short into an affecting social drama that unfolds amid violence and fear in Iraq, 2009, during the second Gulf War.

Centered on a soccer-mad young boy whose family is forced to move from the capital to a small village after his leg is blown off in a terrorist attack, “Baghdad Messi” has an almost documentary-like realism that makes compelling viewing of Iraq’s international feature Oscar submission.

Born in Iraqi Kurdistan during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), Kalifa fled to Belgium in 2001 and has since forged a successful career with Oscar-shortlisted shorts (“Baghdad Messi,” “Bad Hunter”), feature fiction (“Zagros”) and co-directing the 2023 documentary feature “Iraq’s Invisible Beauty,” a portrait of Iraqi photographer Latif al-Ani, whose work since the 1950s has documented Iraq’s architectural landmarks and urban landscape, much of which has now been destroyed.

That destruction is everywhere in “Baghdad Messi.” In an environment that more closely resembles a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a functioning metropolis, 11-year-old Hamoudi (Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah) lives for soccer and idolizes Lionel Messi, the Argentine genius then playing for Spanish giants Barcelona FC.