In the heart of Mosul, a city scarred by war, three men fight to revive its spirit: Bashar rebuilds his family’s shattered home, Fakhri salvages historical artifacts to preserve a fading past, Fadel, once silenced by ISIS, now uses music to awaken hope in a new generation. As women reclaim public spaces and art returns to the streets, a powerful cultural revival takes root.
In a world accustomed to news of conflict and destruction, it’s easy to lose sight of the smaller stories—the individual lives, cherished objects, and personal histories that make up the soul of a place. In The Lions by the River Tigris, director Zaradasht Ahmed offers a poignant, finely drawn portrait of one such story, set against the shattered backdrop of Mosul’s Old City in Northern Iraq.
What emerges is not a sweeping political exposé, nor a didactic history lesson. Instead, it is a grounded, human-centred documentary that brings the viewer into the intimate lives of two men: Bashar Salih, a local fisherman, and Fakhri Al Jawal, a former soldier turned amateur museum curator. Together, their story captures the tension between personal grief and cultural recovery, between rebuilding and preserving, and between what is lost and what might still be saved.
Once a beacon of Islamic and Middle Eastern architecture, history, and life, Mosul’s Old City was irreparably damaged during the years of occupation by Islamic State (IS) and the subsequent battle to liberate the area in 2017. The documentary acknowledges the scale of this loss—tens of thousands of homes destroyed, cultural landmarks erased, and families displaced—but it never overwhelms the viewer with statistics or war footage. Instead, Ahmed lets the ruins speak for themselves. Empty streets, crumbling stone, and the occasional relic peeking through the debris become quiet witnesses to a cultural catastrophe.
What Ahmed chooses to focus on, however, is not the enormity of the destruction, but rather the perseverance of memory and meaning in the aftermath. This is not a film about the fall of a city—it is a film about what rises in its wake.
The titular lions are not majestic animals, but stone carvings above a doorway—small, symmetrical bas-reliefs that once adorned the entrance to Bashar’s now-destroyed home. These lions become a central symbol in the documentary: a quiet but potent metaphor for heritage, identity, and ownership.
Bashar, who still refers to the house as though it could be resurrected, returns to its remains again and again. His wife questions the emotional toll this takes, suggesting he is retraumatising himself. Among the rubble, he searches for pieces of his former life—photographs, fishing nets, memories.
Fakhri, by contrast, has channelled his loss into preservation. His home, a modest house in the city, now serves as an unofficial museum. Here, he collects and displays remnants of Iraqi life—battered kitchenware, children’s toys, old posters—each artefact a thread in the tapestry of a culture that risks being forgotten. For him, the stone lions represent a final, exquisite piece to complete his collection. He wants to display them above his museum door, where others might see and remember.
What follows is a gentle but emotionally charged negotiation. Fakhri is persistent, even romantic, in his pursuit of the lions. He brings friends and his wife to view them, sharing the story of their beauty and their meaning. Bashar, however, cannot part with them. They are one of the only features of his childhood home left standing. He believes the house might one day be rebuilt, and the lions must remain where they are.
This push and pull is never melodramatic. It is quiet, sincere, and deeply human. Each man is right in his own way. Fakhri seeks to preserve and share the past; Bashar hopes to reclaim and live in it. Their conflict, respectful and grounded, mirrors the broader question: how does a community recover from cultural erasure? Through preservation or rebuilding? Through sharing or holding close?
A third figure brings added warmth and depth to the narrative: Fadel, Fakhri’s close friend and a musician. During IS’s occupation, playing music was forbidden, punishable by death. Now liberated, Fadel returns to the ruins with his violin, playing haunting melodies that echo across broken walls and collapsed courtyards. Fakhri holds a speaker aloft as his friend performs, amplifying the music for anyone who might listen. These scenes are among the most moving in the documentary. They remind us that culture is not only found in objects or buildings, but in expression, performance, and emotion. Through Fadel, the film shows how some aspects of identity can be silenced but not destroyed. Like the stone lions, the music has endured—fragile, yet unbroken.
What makes The Lions by the River Tigris so effective is its restraint. Rather than attempting to explain or summarise the entire conflict, Ahmed chooses to spotlight one story within a sea of ruin. In doing so, he makes the vast tragedy of Mosul deeply personal and recognisable. We are not overwhelmed by facts; we are invited to feel. The viewer is left not with answers, but with questions: What is worth preserving? Who decides what should be saved and what should be let go? And can a single carving—a pair of lions above a doorway—really carry the weight of 8,000 years of culture?
The answer, the film gently suggests, is yes. Because identity is not only built through grand monuments or famous relics, but also through the quiet determination of ordinary people—people like Bashar, Fakhri, and Fadel—who refuse to let their stories be buried.
The Lions by the River Tigris is a tender, thoughtful film that finds profound meaning in a seemingly small dispute. By narrowing its focus, it widens its impact. Zaradasht Ahmed has crafted a documentary that not only remembers the past but insists on its relevance in the present. At its heart, this is a story about the soul of a city—and the people who fight to keep that soul alive, even when everything else has been reduced to rubble.
In a world that too often views war through wide-angle lenses, The Lions by the River Tigris reminds us to zoom in, to listen, and to remember.
Directed by Zaradasht Ahmed | 91 mins | Arabic & English | Asia Pacific Premiere
Screening at the Doc Edge documentary festival, in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and online from 25 June.