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Netflix to show first movie about Iraq battle against Islamic State in Mosul

“Mosul,” an Iraqi film production on one of the stories of the battle to liberate the city, is set to be shown on Netflix this month.

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Adam Bessa, Suhail Dabbach, director Matthew Michael Carnahan, Thaer al-Shayei and Waleed Elgadi walk the red carpet ahead of the "Mosul" screening during the 76th Venice Film Festival at Sala Grande on Sept. 4, 2019, in Venice, Italy. — Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

“Mosul,” the first international film in Iraqi dialect telling the “heroic” stories of the “Iraqi forces,” is coming to Netflix on Nov. 26.

The idea of the film, produced by brothers Anthony and Joe Ross, came from an article published by The New Yorker during the battle to liberate Mosul, which was launched in October 2016. The Ross brothers decided to turn the story into a movie.

“The idea for the film came following a long feature in The New Yorker about the SWAT unit that was working on infiltrating the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) before the start of the military operations,” Mohammed al-Darraji, one of the film’s production team members and founder of the Baghdad-based Human Film production company, told Al-Monitor.

“The mission of the 1st SWAT Unit was to infiltrate into IS, which had kidnapped the family of one SWAT member. This is a wonderful human story,” he added. 

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