Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream, a film by Iraqi director Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji, will open the 2026 Hollywood African Cinema Connection (HACC) in Cape Town on 30 October.
The screening will take place at Ster-Kinekor, V&A Waterfront, at 8pm. Tickets are sold through Quicket.
HACC creative director Weaam Williams told IOL that the film lets audiences spend time with children they usually only meet in reports about war. “We often just see them as statistics in the news,” she said.
The story follows Chum-Chum, a nine-year-old orphan who has diabetes. He lives in Baghdad and believes the Tigris river holds a passage to his dead parents.
The film opens with the boy underwater in the river. In his imagination, Irkalla, the mythical underworld linked to the Gilgamesh story, lies beyond the water.
Chum-Chum spends his days with an older friend called Moody. According to IOL, the two boys have big dreams but no way to chase them.
Al-Daradji told IOL that the film is about home and belonging. “We need to belong to something,” he said. “We need to have our home. We need to have the land.”
“Without a land or a home, you don’t have an identity,” he said.
The director said he filmed Chum-Chum “almost exclusively with an 85mm lens”. He said this gave the boy “a sensitive, intimate presence” on screen.
In the film, Maryam is a nurse and carer. She drives an old double-decker bus that has been turned into a mobile school for children living on the streets.
Maryam is played by Samar Kazem Jawad, who had never acted before. Al-Daradji arranged driving lessons for her so she could drive the bus while performing.
The bus has a dark past. Al-Daradji said he found it in a graveyard for double-decker buses outside Baghdad.
He said ISIS once used the bus to carry people who were killed and thrown into the river. The Iraqi army later seized it.
Al-Daradji said he wanted to change what the bus stood for. He described the change as moving it “from people to be killed to the people to be educated.”
The director said he was also thinking about children outside Iraq while he made the film. “It’s not only Iraqi children,” he said.
He spoke to IOL about children in South Africa who have no voice and no rights they can depend on.
The film shows children who need food, medicine, friendship, schooling and safety. HACC is a festival focused on land and heritage.
Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream will be shown at Ster-Kinekor, V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on 30 October 2026 at 8pm.
Source: this article is based on reporting by IOL Entertainment. Image: IOL Entertainment. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Entertainment desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Rirhandzu Baloyi writes about entertainment for Tzaneen Voice. Rirhandzu covers South African music, film, TV, streaming, awards and celebrity news, from amapiano and local soapies to Showmax and Netflix releases. Stories stick to what happened, who was involved and when fans can watch or listen.