The Toronto International Film Festival posted their schedule today, and among the docs is something called Heavy Metal in Baghdad — a behind-the-scenes look at Acrassicauda, “the only Iraqi heavy metal band.” (And, I’m guessing, one of few Iraqi bands, period, these days.) Watch the trailer here. As you can see, co-directors Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi (Vice magazine co-founder; the film is produced by mag affiliate VBS.tv) went the distance for the story. Which is, you know, totally metal of them. Before it became a feature, parts of the doc comprised a YouTube series of the same name.
METAL is a universal language!
Listen to clips of Acrassicauda — according to the band’s website, “a Latin term for one of the most dangerous and unique kind of black scorpions [that] lives in the Iraqi deserts” — here or at their MySpace page.
TIFF is pretty reliable insofar as booking the big music docs that soon make their way to San Francisco — Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey in 2005; American Hardcore in 2006. I’m definitely gonna catch it when I head to the fest in a few weeks…stay tuned.