Beneath Which Rivers Flow

Ali Yahya

In the marshlands of southern Iraq, Ibrahim and his family live isolated from the rest of the world, deeply intertwined with the river, the reeds and the animals they tend. The quiet and withdrawn Ibrahim finds solace only in his buffalo, his one true companion. One morning, a dense fog blankets the marshes, and Ibrahim senses an ominous shift in the land. The rivers begin to dry up and the earth cracks. As Ibrahim’s world collapses, he must confront forces beyond his control that threaten not only his way of life but also the one living creature he truly understands.

Iraq 2025, '15

DIRECTOR: Ali Yahya

SCENARIO: Ali Yahya, Mohammed Baz

CAMERA: Ali Ameer

MONTAGE: Akram Sadoon

MUSIC: Khayam Al Lami

PRODUCERS: Jafar Sadik

PRODUCTION: Becorp Inc

FESTIVALS & AWARDS:

Berlinale (2025): Special Mention - Generation 14plus
IDFA
AFI Fest
Montreal IDF
São Paulo ISFF
Dokufest
Margaret Mead FF
Uppsala Short FF
Tirana IFF

Ali Yahya

Ali Yahya is an Iraqi filmmaker. Born in 1994, he has lived and worked his entire life in Baghdad. For seven years, he navigated the world of ideas as a Creative Director at one of Baghdad’s leading creative agencies. There, he discovered that storytelling isn’t just about crafting narratives; it’s about capturing fleeting moments of existence—the echoes of voices often unheard, the spaces between words, and the emotions that resist definition. Ali’s first step into filmmaking came with Beneath Which Rivers Flow, a film born not from ambition but from curiosity—a desire to explore the fragile threads that connect humanity to nature, fear to belonging, and life to its inevitable transformations. Through his work, Ali does not seek to provide answers but to illuminate the questions that define us—the quiet struggles, the overlooked beauty, and the existential weight of simply being. To him, cinema is an invitation: to witness, to reflect, and to discover the unseen layers of both the world and ourselves.