Tahseen Dahis

Based on Dexter Filkins’ resonant New Yorker article of the same name, about Marine Lu Lobello, haunted by memories of a deadly incident in Baghdad, whose journey of guilt and remorse leads him to reach out to Nora, the sole surviving member of the family he believes he may have harmed.

The year is 1946. Under the strict orders of their father, Adam drags his younger brother Ali to witness their grandfather's corpse get washed before burial. Their cousin Iman, their constant playmate, is excluded from the ritual because she is a girl. The sight of the corpse has a profound effect on Adam; he announces that he doesn’t want to grow up and, from that moment on, he stops aging. As the years pass, the villagers come to believe Adam is cursed, while his brother, grappling with his own aging, feels Adam should be institutionalized. Only Iman and Anki, a shepherd and Adam’s lifelong best friend, see his condition as a blessing, preserving in him the pure, innocent goodness of a child. A haunting and beautiful story set against the oases and dust storms of Iraq.