The Saturday night SIFF Cinema screening of the documentary Heavy Metal In Baghdad provided the best possible antidote we could have hoped for to the asinine and maudlin SIFF opener Battle in Seattle: Stuart Townsend's misfire was so bad it may have actually inflicted a deeper scar into our collective psyche than the actual WTO riots ever did. While both films aspire to show an up close and personal look at what it’s like when real people are caught up in conflicts of geo-political significance, only one of these efforts doesn’t suck. We'll take it a step further and say that Heavy Metal In Baghdad is the best film we've seen all year.

VICE media moguls Suroosh Alvi and Eddy Moretti spent five years keeping up with Iraqi heavy metal group Acrassicauda. The story spans from a pre-war Saddam era concert where the group avoids the possibility of prison by singing an obligatory headbanger anthem in honor of their dictator (the lyrics to this are really something), through their efforts to endure the post invasion chaos in Baghdad, to their eventual refugee status in Syria. The direction is unflinching, the footage is raw, the emotions are real and the pervasive sense of paranoia and dread in their war torn country make the band’s effort to rock seem at once inspiring and heartbreaking.

As of the most recent issue of VICE and as of the band’s May 7th blog post, the Acrassicauda guys appear to still be stuck in refugee limbo in Turkey. Their website accepts donations here and you can pre-order the dvd of the film here. Below is the trailer: