HBO Schedules Saddam Mini-Series

NEW YORK, November 10: The
HBO Films and BBC co-production House of
Saddam, a mini-series about the life of the deposed Iraqi dictator, is set
to premiere on HBO on December 7.

Parts one and two will air
Sunday, December 7, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., with the final two hours due to
broadcast December 14. The drama is directed by Alex Holmes (Dunkirk) and Jim O’Hanlon (Casualty) from a script by Holmes and
Stephen Butchard (Vincent). House of Saddam stars Igal Naor (Rendition, Munich) as Saddam Hussein; Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) as his first
wife, Sajida; Philip Arditti (10 Days to
War) as his oldest son, Uday; Said Taghmaoui (Vantage Point, The Kite
Runner) as his half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim; and Christine Stephen-Daly (Casualty, Cutting It) as his mistress and subsequent second wife, Samira. The
mini-series takes place in 1979, when Hussein seized control of Iraq in a
bloody coup, as its starting point and chronicles milestones in his 25-year
rule.

"In the history of
Iraq and in the world of Saddam Hussein, details are often blurred by politics,
propaganda and pure self-interest," said Alex Holmes, the co-director,
co-writer and executive producer. "We set out to talk to as many people as
we could who had known Saddam first-hand in order to piece together a picture
of what life was like inside Saddam's ever-shrinking inner circle. We spoke to
his allies and to his adversaries; to politicians, exiles, palace insiders, his
cooks, his menservants, friends of the Hussein family and government
ministers. We interviewed people
inside and outside Iraq. We cross-referenced these interviews with pictures and
home movies left behind by the Hussein family, some produced for propaganda
purposes, but others more candid, salvaged from the regime's destroyed palaces.
And we accessed the partial trail of documents that emerged following the fall
of the secretive and obsessively bureaucratic regime. The process took three
years and involved a team of three researchers, all Arabic speakers. What
emerges is a distinct and independent portrait of a dictator and his center of
power."

—By
Mansha Daswani