From Valletta to Baghdad: How ARTE’s Iraq War Documentary Is Stirring Maltese Hearts and History

**Caught in the Crossfire: How ARTE’s New Iraq Documentary Resonates in Malta’s Own Backyard**

*From Valletta’s historic battlements to Baghdad’s bullet-scarred boulevards, a new ARTE documentary is forcing Maltese viewers to confront the human cost of war—and to see our own island’s refugee stories with fresh eyes.*

When the German-French channel ARTE dropped *Iraq in the Crossfire* on its streaming platform last week, few expected it to trend in Malta. Yet within 48 hours the hashtag #IraqCrossfireMalta was circulating on local Twitter, teachers were sharing classroom clips, and the Refugee Commission had organised a free public screening at Spazju Kreattiv. Why? Because the 90-minute film—shot over 18 months in Mosul, Basra and the Shiite suburbs of Baghdad—feels eerily close to home for an island that has received 4,327 Iraqi asylum-seekers since 2014.

Sitting cross-legged on a carpet at the Ħamrun community centre, 19-year-old Moustafa Khadim watches a scene in which a 12-year-old Iraqi boy describes the smell of burning Humvees. “That was my street,” he whispers to the volunteer beside him. Moustafa arrived in Malta alone at 16 after ISIS killed his father; he still sleeps with the light on. Around him, two-dozen Iraqi teenagers nod in recognition. One girl starts silently crying when an ARTE interviewee recalls crossing the Mediterranean on a smuggler’s dinghy—the same route 1,850 Iraqis risked last year in the hope of reaching Malta or Italy.

The documentary’s timing is no accident. ARTE’s producers chose to release the English-subtitled version on 15 May, two days before Malta marks its own 1940-1943 blitz anniversary. “We wanted Mediterranean audiences to draw parallels,” Brussels-based commissioning editor Lucie Deltour tells *Hot Malta*. “Malta knows what it means to live under constant aerial bombardment; to lose your roof but keep your dignity.” State statistics show that 87 % of Maltese households had a family member killed or wounded in WWII—collective memory that makes ARTE’s drone shots of Mosul’s flattened university hit harder.

Local historians agree. Dr. Josanne Cassar, who lectures at Junior College, has already added the film to her *Mediterranean Conflicts* syllabus. “Students born after 2000 equate Iraq with TikTok memes or Call of Duty maps,” she says. “Seeing a Baghdad baker explain how he still makes *samoon* bread at 3 a.m. while mortars fall makes the place human again.” Cassar points out that Malta’s own *karozzin* drivers and fishermen once lived through similar nightly sirens; the film becomes a bridge between generations.

The cultural ripple is tangible. In the past week, Maltese-Iraqi pop-up dinners in Sliema sold out—platters of *masgouf* carp served beside *ħobż biż-żejt*—while the National Book Council fast-tracked Arabic-Maltese translation grants. Even the archdiocese weighed in: Caritas Malta is organising a twinning project between St Paul’s Missionary College and the Christian community of Karamlesh featured in the documentary. “Solidarity is easier when you can put a face on the stranger,” says Fr. Jimmy Bonnici, who helped host the Ħamrun screening.

Not everyone is comfortable. Some comments under the *Times of Malta* Facebook post accused ARTE of “emotional manipulation” and warned that “more boats will come.” Yet the data tells a different story: Iraqi arrivals dropped 22 % last year, and every Iraqi family that lands is subject to the EU’s relocation quota—meaning many eventually move on to Germany or France. What remains is the storytelling. As Moustafa puts it: “When Europeans watch this film, maybe they won’t ask me why my English has an Arabic accent; they’ll ask what chapter of the journey I’m in.”

Walking out of Spazju Kreattiv into the warm Valletta night, viewers pass bronze plaques marking WWII bomb sites. For a moment, the limestone walls feel less like tourist backdrops and more like pages of the same Mediterranean diary—one that now includes ARTE’s haunting footage of Iraq. The message is simple: wars end, borders shift, but the need to listen across them is permanent. In that sense, *Iraq in the Crossfire* is not foreign coverage; it’s a mirror held up to Malta’s own past, present and, perhaps, its better angels.