Zaman - The Man from the Reeds (2003)

★ 6.7 1h 17m IMDb
Drama

Zaman is a sweet and sad story about love and devotion, hope and fear. Zaman (Sami Kaftan), and his wife, Najma (Shatha Salim), have built their happy life together in their house of reeds and, though childless, adopted a boy, Yacine (Hussein Imad), orphaned by the 1991 Gulf War. They have lived a quiet, contented existence until Najma falls ill. The local doctor tells them she needs surgery or some special medicine he does not have. And so Zaman sets off in his small boat and journeys up the Tigris to Baghdad in search of the precious cure. Thus begins the journey of salvation and discovery for "Zaman, the Man of the Reeds."

Zaman - The Man from the Reeds

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Cast

Shaza Salem
Shaza Salem as Najma Age 67 · Baghdad, Iraq A famous Iraqi actress. She grew up in an artistic house, she entered the world of art when she was a student at the Institute of Fine Arts in 1975. She participated in many local, regional and intern...
Nizar Al-Samarayi
Nizar Al-Samarayi Iraq
Director Amer Alwan
Cast Shaza Salem, Saadiya Al-Zaydi, Hussein Imad, Nizar Al-Samarayi

Audience Reviews

r96sk 7/10 Jul 06, 2025
<em>'Zaman - The Man from the Reeds'</em> splits my thoughts. On the one hand, there isn't really enough plot here for a full length (albeit of the shorter variety) film and as such it never truly gets out of second gear. On the other hand, it is undeniably touching and the ending is poignant.

Sami Kaftan's lead performance is pleasant, it's impossible not to care about his character and the family's predicament. None of the other actors get much time to shine, as you'd expect given the story, but Shada Salim does enough to stick out ever so slightly behind Kaftan.

This narrowly gets a pass from me. The heart that is present throughout manages to keep it just about watchable.

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