When he finds a blonde, blue-eyed sex doll dressed in a star-spangled bikini in the dump, he is not only attracted by it himself, he foresees that the local boys will be so too, and opens up a makeshift brothel in a motorized rickshaw. However, this business venture might not be the most suitable in the cultural climate of urban Iraq and the boys soon discover that their free-spirited way of thinking β and love for women β is not appreciated.
The film is to some extent about the impact that the American war has had on Iraqi society β and the blonde sex doll represents this among other things.
What inspired you to make this film? It is loosely based on a true story. Iraq was isolated during the sanctions, so Iraq was a big prison for us.
We did not have access to anything outside the country and had no idea what was going on. Back in and , the Americans invaded the country and it was a mess. One day, I was at the university waiting for a friend of mine, who was late and he showed up with a plastic bag in his hand and wanted us to meet in the university toilet. He opened the plastic bag and there was a sex toy in it: a vagina.
It was a shock for us. It was something we had not seen before. And teenage boys started using it and one day a guy took it and he had boiled it to try to clean it up and it was completely destroyed. That was the end of the business for the toy. I was very angry when I left the theatre. How can filmmakers sexualize war? Promote it? It is a story about a sniper looking very sexy and with a sexy gun shooting Iraqis β whether they are terrorists or not, they are human beings.
