London’s Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image (BIMI) — the only academic cinema in the University of London — hosted a special evening celebrating the poetic and intellectual journey of Dr. Amal Al-Jubouri, Iraqi poet, scholar, and filmmaker.
The event featured screenings and rare archival footage from her films chronicling exile, memory, and Arab culture between Baghdad, Berlin, and London.
The Director of BIMI opened the evening with a tribute to Al-Jubouri’s artistic and cultural achievements, noting that this screening marks the first step toward the full presentation next year of her documentary From Berlin to Baghdad — the only Iraqi film to bear witness to the looting of the National Museum and the burning of Iraq’s National Archives in 2003, to be shown in 2026 on the 23rd anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq.
British, Chinese, and Malaysian musicians performed an original composition inspired by Al-Jubouri’s forthcoming poetry collection Lanterns of Alaa Al-Naja (Gaza Poems).
The evening also showcased her latest publications in Arabic and English, including From Baghdad to Oxford: Avi Shlaim and the Deconstruction of the Israeli Narrative, attended by her Iraqi publisher.