CPH:DOX 2024 – Hiding Saddam Hussein

Sitting cross-legged on a rug in his living room with a packet of cigarettes within reach, an Iraqi farmer tells the incredible but true story of how he kept the country’s former dictator Saddam Hussein hidden in a homemade cave in his garden for eight months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. One day, the idolised ex-dictator simply knocked on the door and demanded to be kept hidden. With 150,000 soldiers on his back and a $25 million bounty hanging over his head, and a thinly veiled warning not to give in to the temptation to betray him – and from that day on, the simple life of the Iraqi farmer changed completely. He became Hussein’s bodyguard, doctor and hairdresser, while a tentative friendship grew between them. It’s endlessly fascinating to have the man himself sitting in front of you on screen, just telling you how it all happened, illustrated by nerve-wracking and cinematic reconstructions.