Catalogue > At random

On Hospitality is a necromantic documentary where the Iraqi artist Layla Al-Attar returns from the dead to tell the story of how a Swedish company built a luxurious hotel in Baghdad, ordered by Saddam Hussein for the 1983 summit of the Non-Alignment Movement. War changed all the plans. Layla made a mosaic at the entrance of the hotel, depicting George Bush’s face, and her house was hit by an American missile.

Magnus Bärtås is an artist, writer and filmmaker, and has exhibited at Gwangju Biennial, Göteborgs Konsthall and Moderna Museet, Stockhom among other venues. He won the grand prize at Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in 2010 with Madame & Little Boy. Behzad Khosravi Noori is an artist, writer and filmmaker working between Karachi and Stockholm. Bärtås and Khosravi-Noori won the 1st Prize of the Jury of the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia at Oberhausen International Short Film Festival with On Hospitality – Layla al Attar and Hotel al Rasheed in 2024.