Direction: Chiara Avesani and Matteo Delbò
Production: RAI, Yuzu Productions, Indyca. Coproduction: ARTE, in association with ARPA Films
Country: Italy
Year: 2023
Genre: Report
Broadcast channel: Rai 1
Duration: 60’
SYNOPSIS
July 2017, Mosul is freed but left in ruins. Ghadeer, a young journalist who fled to Brussels when Mosul fell into the hands of ISI, decides to abandon the promise of a future in Europe to return to the city that had seen him grow up. Him and several friends create Radio One FM, a radio station independent from any religious, communitarianism or political ties, one that could help to restore social and political dialogue as well as peaceful coexistence in a war-torn society.
The first two years are utopic for the team of journalists. Radio One gains a national audience thanks to its documentation of the country’s hardships. But without external financing nor advertisement, the Radio faces economic instability, trying to overcome its situation by opening a café whose revenues are supposed to finance it. Simultaneously, the journalistic freedom of the station is faced by the pressures of the militias linked to the political clans battling for the control of Iraq, repressing in blood all forms of contestation.
Marked by corruption, power struggles and foreign interferences (Iran ahead), whatever was left of the never-rebuilt Iraqi State after the second Gulf War fails to ensure the vital minimum to its citizens as the country is on the brink of civil war.
