EXCLUSIVE: There was a constant feeling of discomfort and high warning from the stars and filmmakers behind Mosul, the Iraqi thriller based on the true story of an Iraqi SWAT police group that was on the street to wipe out ISIS members to avenge the loves lost by members of the unit by the terrorist organization. The film made a notable Thanksgiving debut on Netflix and became one of the most watched movies on the site in Europe and the Middle East. Unfortunately with the popularity of the film, several stars of the film have seen their social media pages filled with disturbing threats of violence apparently coming from members and loyalists of the broken ISIS organization.
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“When I reported on my social media that the film was going to come out, there was a lot of ISIS the first day,” said Suhail Dabbach, who plays the stale Colonel Jasem, the leader of the SWAT team. “They put up a lot of videos and bad words. As they said, we know you now, and you need to keep an eye on yourself. Touch your head every day to make sure it’s still on. They said, “We know where you live and we will reach you.” ‘
Dabbach’s family has received similar scary threats, and his co-star Adam Besa, who plays the policeman set up in the SWAT team, has seen his Instagram page wiped clean and he is being threatened on WhatsApp. These threats have been detected in Turkey. Both the financier, AGBO, Netflix and 101 Studios, took it seriously to order internal security forces to step in and make sure everyone is safe.
“It was definitely a terrific experience for the actors,” Joe Russo told Deadline. ‘It’s never a comfortable feeling to violate your privacy, and it’s scary to receive death threats from anonymous sources. We feel that this is handled expertly by Netflix and by our own security team. ”
Anthony Russo did not want to say that when they confirmed that the death threats from ISIS came after AGBO re-engaged the TigerSwan security service, they were sure that the actors and crew were safe during production in Morocco.
“I’m just going to say we took it very seriously,” Russo told Deadline. “We knew the film was challenging and potentially dangerous for everyone involved. We took the highest security measures we could think of and we were familiar with the process after working on the Marvel movies. It was a whole new level in terms of secrecy. We did not distribute texts, we had a code name for the film and removed every reference from ISIS from the text when we had to distribute it, so it was never explicitly mentioned as in the film. We had the best security people with us, but still there was danger, but we had to be in a Middle Eastern country to make the film the way we did. We were exposed and had to do as responsibly as we could, but everyone thought it was worth the risk. ”
Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wrote and directed the play for AGBO, said the threats were a terrible by-product of the film’s extraordinarily high viewers, and the numbers of the audience were particularly notable for shooting in Iraqi subtitles. to maintain the sense of authenticity. This was difficult for Dabbach, whose performance as SWAT leader was widely praised. He waited a long time for his big acting moment; he graduated from Baghdad College Fine Arts to be an actor, but had to flee when Saddam Hussein came in and installed the boy Uday to be in charge of the arts. This made the production of films a dangerous occupation. Dabbach spent time in refugee camps in Jordan before finding his way to the US, where he scraped for jobs but made his living mainly in a retirement village. While in an unforgettable scene with Jeremy Renner as the best winner of the picture The Hurt Locker he was the man bolted into an explosive vest begging the bomb expert to defuse the mechanism and save his life, in vain – Mosul is a true showcase of his acting skills, and it’s a shame he had to worry about threats while waiting for the next lead role.
For Carnahan, this is just the latest in a winding and sometimes dangerous path for the film. He would like to see his actors get roles from the film, not death threats. Fortunately, Netflix and AGBO were on standby with security teams just having to be reactivated to determine the threat levels.
“It’s been like this since we started shooting under a stupid name,” Carnahan told Deadline. ‘It has always been called Picnic, because the security men of TigerSwan said, you are in Morocco, the third largest national contingent of ISIS is Moroccans, we must take every possible step to make sure we are safe. ”
Carnahan said they hid the plot as much as possible when they shot in the country, and that most there did not recognize the SWAT team flag flying above an armored Humvee in the battle scenes. “There was only one time where things on the set got dizzy and that were not even related to ISIS, it was more like gang warfare,” he said. “We were in a very sharp part of Marrakesh, and since then we have always been aware of threats. Now that the film has been released and it is as successful as it was. It was the number two movie in the world when it came out, and I just sent something to me that said it was the eighth most popular movie on Netflix in December. I don’t know if Netflix ever thought it was going to be that big; I was over the moon when 101 Studios [which acquired it after Toronto 2019 for a planned theatrical release dashed by the pandemic] talked about us in 800 theaters instead. It felt too good to be true. The idea that these people are threatening us now, I think it comes with the area. That Suhail’s family would be threatened in the Middle East, that they would break into his wife’s phone, or that Adam’s Instagram page would disappear and that he would get these WhatsApp threats, no one knew of the use that it at that level would not come. In one way it was scary, in another way we thought, man who must have beaten us near the house. We should have hit a nerve in what remains of ISIS, or at least that ISIS mindset. ‘
“It would be great if the world realized these guys – and Suhail was working in a retirement community when I threw him, that he’s on the radar of a lot of bad people right now,” Carnahan said. ‘I want him to be recognized for the risk he took, I want Adam to be recognized for the risk he took, and I want people to think about this film and see it, because they are very dangerous have people out there who hate watching them. Who hates that someone portrayed this struggle, with a story over which they have no control.
‘I think 48 hours after we came out in Iraq, ISIS expressed this 44-minute response to the film, but uses a pirated Netflix logo that runs over it. I want people to know what these guys did, how crazy this movie was from the beginning, when they watch, yes, it’s a movie, but that it poses a physical risk to everyone involved and especially the actors . This is proof of how good they are. ‘
Netflix has placed its security and AGBO has re-engaged TigerSwan, their security firm that provided security to set and technical advisers, most of whom are former soldiers of Delta, Green Beret and Foreign Legion.
“They went through it all with Suhail and Adam and helped them scrub pages and protect themselves,” Carnahan said. ‘We have done most of what we can in front of it, but there are people who kill people with knives because they have insulted Islam. It would be stupid not to be on point and a little freaked out. ‘
The terror in Marrakesh was about money, not political ideology, Carnahan said.
“We were in a very difficult part of Marrakesh, in the scenes with the narrow alleys where there are caves, but these are apartments,” he said. ‘To shoot in the very difficult part of Marrakesh, you have to hire security, which means the local gang so people are not harassed and hurt on the high and low side, and people do not shout during your recording, because it is also a tactic to get money. The gun laws are so strict in Morocco that you go to jail if you are caught with a sheltered shell. So these guys are fighting with knives. A handful smiled the Glasgow, where the cut starts at the corner of the mouth and goes all the way to the ear? That’s how they fight. They all have a lot of Parkinson’s medication because that is where this particular Parkinson’s medication is manufactured in Morocco. We shoot there, everything goes as well as it can, and then the rival gang hears the others are being paid. Just when the school leaves, they get a bunch of kids from their part of the neighborhood and they chase down the set. Police in Marrakesh show up, they have riotous shields. It became stingy for 15-20 minutes. John Sweeney, who managed the TigerSwan crew, always said if you ever feel like I’m grabbing you, go with it. I will not do this unless it really means something that we are in a difficult place. That was the only time he grabbed me. We always had a safe green room. We waited ten minutes there and it eliminated everything. The people who had to be paid were paid and the people who had to be threatened were threatened. We could keep shooting. ”
None of the gang members had any allegiance to ISIS, it appears. “It was the kind of gang you’d see in the US, or in the Michael Jackson ‘Beat It’ video, fighting with knives,” he said. “It helped a lot that there was no American cast or uniforms, and nothing to identify with American soldiers. This kept us under the radar and we carefully covered the Humvees at night. ”
Dabbach told Deadline he is eagerly awaiting his next role. The Russians have placed several actors in some of their other AGM films, including the sequel to the Netflix hit Withdrawal, and the hope is that the film will grab their attention during the awards season, where it is eligible for Golden Globes as the Iraq Choice. It does not qualify as the Iraq Choice for Best International Film Oscar, but is eligible in all other categories.
“I do not want them to look at it from the foreign or Hollywood picture,” Carnahan said. ‘It was American filmmakers who made a film in another language with different faces, about people and a story that is pre-eminently human. The idea that we would be considered a foreign film, well, I understand that, but I do not strive for that. I want people to judge the movie on its merits and what they want. ”
What Carnahan really wants is for the brave actors in the film to use Mosul serve as the calling card for future roles, and perhaps not just as managers or terrorist thugs.
“Nothing will make me happier than seeing these guys work again and not in a war movie,” Carnahan said. ‘Just get roles that lawyers play, something that is completely removed from that world. Especially Suhail, because that man is talent and dreams are put off for decades, because of the country in which he was born by chance. This crazy man comes to power and he has to flee, and this budding career he started building is put on hold and for the next few decades he works at a retirement community, after being in a refugee camp in Jordan just lived. I would love to see it if they could turn this popularity into ongoing career opportunities. They are all in the same place waiting for what comes next. ”