Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives: A Journey of Identity
Date and time: Wednesday, May 6, 2020, 11 am to 12 noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7)
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Join Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa for a fascinating conversation on the Iraqi Jewish Archive with filmmaker, Adriana Davis and Iraqi Jewish leader and advocate, Carole Basri. Their latest film, “Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archive” explores the history and stories of the Iraqi Jewish Archive which consists of over 4,800 books and artifacts that were stripped from Iraqi Jews starting in 1952. Rescued by US soldiers in 2003 from a flooded basement of the Iraqi secret police, the archive was brought to the USA for restoration and exhibition. Among those are the records of the last Jewish education center in Iraq – The Frank Iny School. Presently, the US and Iraqi governments are planning to return those same archives to a politically unstable Iraq.
Carole Basri is an American filmmaker, lawyer of Iraqi Jewish descent and author. Most of her productions focus on the History of the Jews in Iraq as she documents her ancestral roots and discusses Jewish traditions in Iraq. She is the President of Corporate Lawyering Group LLC and a visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law and Pericles Law School, Moscow, Russia. In 2003, Ms. Basri was a member of the US State Department’s “Future of Iraq” Project and a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority, with the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council (IRDC) for Ambassador Bremer in Baghdad. Ms. Basri has Executive Produced a trilogy of films about Iraq’s Jewish community and history: THE LIFE OF FRANK INY (1999), SEARCHING FOR BAGHDAD (2002) and THE LAST JEWS OF BAGHDAD (2005). The trilogy has screened at over 80 premier film festivals in the US, Canada, Israel and Europe and was featured on PBS and JLTV.
Adriana Davis has worked in film, television and radio as a writer, producer, editor and voice-over artist since 1991. She is the founder of D-SQUARED MEDIA, a full-service production company based in New York City with corporate and film clients. Ms. Davis is the co-director, producer, writer and editor of an acclaimed trilogy of documentaries about Iraq’s Jewish community and history: THE LIFE OF FRANK INY (1999), SEARCHING FOR BAGHDAD (2002) and THE LAST JEWS OF BAGHDAD (2005). The trilogy has screened at over 80 premier film festivals in the US, Canada, Israel and Europe and was featured on PBS and JLTV. Ms. Davis received a BA in political science and completed all but her dissertation for her MA in Congressional Studies from The Catholic University of America and holds a Producing Certificate from The Hollywood Film Institute.