The Deminer

Every year countless of people die because of roadside bombs and landmines. Fakhir Berwari of the Iraqi army has decided to do something about it. In fact, he is giving his life to the matter. The Deminer is a film by Hogir Hiror and Shinwar Kamal. It follows Fakhir from 2003 to 2014 as he defuses dangerous explosives armed with simple wire cutters. The nervous camera man repeatedly asks him to be careful, but all for naught. Fakhir has eight children, and the family lives in constant fear of losing their father. The Deminer is known as the documentary version of the Hollywood thriller Hurt Locker. It was one of the crowd favourites at the IDFA Documentary Festival and won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary. In 2008 Fakhir’s luck runs out and he loses his leg in an explosion. He can’t return to the army anymore. But when the radical Muslim group Daesh invades the city of Mosul in 2014, Fakhir decides to continue his work in the ranks of the Kurdish Peshmerga troops. ”If I fail, only I will die. But if I succeed, I can save many”, Fakhir explains his devotion.
Teija Murmann (Translation: Tuomo Karvonen) (DocPoint)