ACRASSICAUDA Drummer Says Being Denied Visa To Enter Canada 'Made Me Feel Like A Terrorist'

September 8, 2007

Drummer Marwan Reyad of ACRASSICAUDA — the Iraqi heavy metal band which has been denied visas to attend the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where a documentary focusing on their story, "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" is currently being shown — has told Toronto's TheStar.com that the experience with a Canadian Embassy clerk was unpleasant, adding that the official basically refused to look at their documents and accused them of wanting to run away while in Canada.

"They made me feel like a terrorist ... I said, let me defend myself. This is the moment of our lives; this is a film we all want to watch, more than any other person down there. It's been an eight-year fucking journey down there, and we lived through the threats. People calling us Americanized, saying that they were going to kill us. Sure, we just moved on. We've been worrying about our lives and our families just for playing music that we love, that we're passionate about.

"They denied us that right in Iraq. They denied us that in Syria [the band is currently in Damascus, having fled Iraq to Syria]. They deny us even that right in the Canadian Embassy. So I'm not expecting any fucking democracy in this fucking world."

"Heavy Metal in Baghdad" tells the story of ACRASSICAUDA (translated from Arabic, it means "The Black Scorpion"),which is said to be Iraq's only heavy metal band. First covered in an article in Vice magazine, it was then made into a five-part short series that appeared earlier this year on their Web video offshoot, VBS.tv.

But with all the footage collected over the years, Vice decided the band could become the subject of the company's first full-length feature. The film tells the band's harrowing and touching story with humour and empathy. The handheld camera-shot documentary helps to humanize the Iraqi conflict.

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