At no point during Zaradasht Ahmed’s blistering documentary Nowhere to Hide does anybody express regret for the departure of American soldiers from Iraq. That remains true even though the bulk of the movie is an illustration of the hellish internecine conflict that engulfed the country almost immediately thereafter. Just as importantly, nobody expresses a desire for a return to the time of Saddam Hussein, even though most of the people shown here had quieter and more prosperous lives, even under his dictatorship. This is a nation that has spent most of its recent history being hurled from one fire into another frying pan. After a haunting prelude in which a man wanders in a searing desert and worries about his family’s survival, Ahmed flashes back three years to 2011.

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