ONE WORLD | My Father and Qaddafi

A former Libyan foreign minister, UN ambassador, and human rights lawyer, Mansur Rashid Kikhia, became a peaceful opponent of the increasingly brutal Qaddafi regime after years of service. In 1993, however, he suddenly disappeared from a hotel in Egypt. Jihan’s mother Baha, a determined Syrian-American artist, embarked on a dangerous quest for the truth. The documentary follows the adult Jihan as she sets out on a personal and detective-like journey to piece together an image of the father she barely remembers from fragments of memories. In her search for answers, she travels between the United States, France, and Libya, gradually assembling her father’s story from the testimonies of loved ones and archival traces. In the process, she discovers her own roots and her relationship with a country marked by political upheaval, illustrating how the machinations of a brutal dictatorship can haunt a family for several decades.