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WEDNESDAY

The subjects of Iraqi Women: Voices From Exile furnish an overview of Iraqi society and politics that recalls life before the harshness of Saddam Hussein’s regime. “I watched thousands of hours of coverage, and you never saw anything about an ordinary Iraqi person,” director Maysoon Pachachi observed. “It was as if the country didn’t have a population; it just had Saddam Hussein.” Pachachi is the daughter of dissidents, a polyglot alumna of the famed Bread and Puppet Theater, as well as a protégée of British director Mike Leigh. Her documentary works in the tradition of neosocial realism, with an episodic quality that supports the occasional surprising flashes of humor among the stories that reflect the surreal horror of life in Iraq. Hosted by the Washington Kurdish Institute and the Iraq Foundation, the film is a rare chance to hear a female point of view from Iraq. Iraqi Women: Voices From Exile screens at 7 p.m. at American University’s Ward II Auditorium, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Free. (202) 484-0140. (Neda Ulaby)