The University of Tampa will screen The Unreturned, a film about Iraqi refugees at 2:30 p.m. in Reeves Theater on campus. Admission is free.
The movie tells the stories of five Iraqis from diverse ethnic backgrounds and religions who are displaced by the ongoing war. It moves back and forth between their daily struggles and their lives in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The film was an official selection of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.
In The Unreturned, director Nathan Fisher takes audiences to Syria and Jordan, two countries that have absorbed the brunt of Iraqi refugees generated by the U.S. occupation of their home country. From these neighboring countries, we hear directly from Iraqis themselves about what life was like in Iraq, both before and after the U.S.-led invasion, why they fled, why the choose not to return, and what life is like as a refugee.
A Q&A with director Nathan Fisher will follow the screening, which is a joint effort between the Office of International Programs and the Department of Government, History and Sociology. For more information, contact Brooke Pawlak at (813) 257-3501 or bpawlak@ut.edu.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.