The talented Hamoudi is an 11-year-old boy with a passion for soccer and an ultimate dream to one day reach the level of his idol Lionel Messi. The day Hamoudi is caught in a horrific suicide attempt, he wakes up severely injured in a hospital. As his parents struggle to keep the family safe, Hamoudi is determined to fight for his shattered dream.

Festivals & Awards: Iraq's Selection for the 97th Academy Awards

About the Filmmaker:

Sahim Omar Kalifa who was born in 1980 in Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan, is a Belgian-Kurdish filmmaker based in Belgium. In 2001, he came to Belgium, and in 2008 he got his Master’s degree in filmmaking at Sint-Lukas Film School, Brussels. With his short film Nan, Kalifa won the Best Flemish Student Film at the Leuven International Short Film Festival. Kalifa has won more than 100 international awards for his short films Land of the Heroes, Baghdad Messi, and Bad Hunter. In May 2016, Sahim started filming his first feature film Zagros, supported by Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (VAF), Dutch Film Fund and Eurimages. His documentary film Iraq’s Invisible Beauty tells the story of the late Iraqi photographer Latif al-Ani and his photographic documentation of Iraq between the 1950s and 1970s.