Watch Nastacia Nickolaou interview Director and Writer, Matthew Michael Carnahan along with lead actors, Adam Bessa (Kawa) and Suhail Dubbach (Major Jasem) as they discuss breaking barriers on film along with the human side to war and terrorism. Netflix’s MOSUL set to release the day November 26th.
Not since Saving Private Ryan has a movie authentically recreated war scenes with such dramatic depth and realism. The cinematography and powerful images found in Netflix’s MOSUL immediately grip you into the unpleasant surroundings of war. You are emotionally placed into the epicenter of a story that needs to be told. Over the course of almost a century, movie makers have admirably covered every world war and territorial conflict the globe has seen. However, MOSUL breaks new ground by first, being the first of its kind to be spoken completely in Arabic with English subtitles and being featuring mostly a foreign language group. Every actor in the film was tied to the region in some way. For instance, the lead actor, Suhail Dubbach, may have not been a stranger to the big screen as he is formerly known for his role in The Hurt Locker, however, he is no Hollywood born and bred star. With a background from The Baghdad College of Fine Arts and a rocky road in Jordan when trying to book acting gigs, Dubbach feels grateful to have landed such a lead role today.
Matthew Michael Carnahan, the Writer, and Director was originally inspired by a 2017 article in the New Yorker written by acclaimed journalist, Luke Mogelson. Carnahan said he felt a need to expand the story. He states that what resonated with him the most when reading the article that birthed the script was that the story of these heroic men needed to be told.
“There is so much more that unifies us than what divides us. The things that matter, a love of family, a desire to be safe to be proud of where you’re from, means so much more than surface divisions. I would hope to be able to do the same as those people,” Carnahan said. The characters in the film show true courage and heroism.
If you walk away having gained a new perspective on exactly who your real heroes in ugly wars are and appreciated the film for its human elements, then according to the director, the film achieved its goal.
