The eight months that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein spent in hiding after being overthrown in 2003 is being developed into a dramatic feature film.
The project comes from David Seidler, the British-American playwright who famously wrote Oscar winner The King’s Speech, and Norwegian-Kurdish filmmaker Halkawt Mustafa, whose documentary about the subject, Hiding Saddam Hussein, recently bowed at the IDFA doc fest and has its Middle East premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which kicks off on Thursday.
The feature — which Mustafa says he plans to direct — will focus on the relationship between Hussein and Alaa Namiq, the Iraqi farmer who was suddenly selected by the ousted dictator to keep him safe as 150,000 U.S. soldiers took part in one of the biggest manhunts on the planet (and one with a $25 million bounty). It was Namiq who dug the tiny hole under his flowerbed near the town of Tikrit from which Hussein famously emerged in late 2003, three years before he was executed. During the time they spent together, Namiq became presidential hairdresser, physician and bodyguard, with a friendship growing between the two.
Mustafa says he and Seidler have spent the last three years writing a drama script based on the story, claiming that Seidler initially saw similarities to that of The King’s Speech, which has a focus on the relationship between the king and his speech therapist. With the release of the Hiding Saddam Hussein documentary, the plan is to now find financing for the project. And he says they’re both adamant that this story be told from the perspective of Namiq rather than the usual Hollywood route. “I don’t want to make a movie about the CIA agent who gets the mission to find Saddam Hussein,” he explains.
Hiding Saddam Hussein — in which Namiq speaks openly for the first time about his time with Hussein and the decision for hiding him — will screen at the Red Sea International Film Festival on Dec. 1.
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